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Increased clarity or continued ambiguity? Correctional officers’ experiences of the evolving Canadian youth justice legislation

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Abstract

Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) heralded many changes in the treatment of youth within the justice system, particularly in regard to holding youth “accountable” and the use of “meaningful consequences.” Under the former Young Offenders Act (YOA) far more youth were given custodial sentences, while under the YCJA youth custody rates have plummeted. Yet few scholars have empirically assessed how correctional officers working with youth (COs) interpret and experience “accountability” and “meaningful consequences” in their day-to-day work. Based on 24 in-depth interviews, we examine the most perceptible changes COs employed in Canadian youth closed-custody facilities encountered, as a result of the legislative movement from the YOA to the YCJA. Findings suggest that the criminality of sentenced youth has changed with the new legislation, as well as how COs do their job—some feeling that the legislation is at odds with their occupational responsibility and negatively impacting their ability to “do the job”. Recommendations for youth correctional practice are offered.

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Notes

  1. We employ the term correctional officer (CO); however, we recognize the variability in the presentation of the occupational role associated with those working in youth closed-custody facilities, which include correctional supervisor, correctional workers, youth workers, among others.

  2. To put these numbers in context, there were, in 2013, about 2.39 million youths (age 12–17 inclusive) in Canada. We present the statistics for young people age 12 to 17, as under Canadian youth justice legislation, i.e., the YCJA, the legal age restrictions for consideration as a youth are 12 to 17 years old. This age range, established under the YOA in 1984, was geared to set a federally consistent maximum age (before the YOA there existed inter-provincial variability in relation to the maximum age) and a minimum age which was generally perceived to be in line with international standards. Debates also frequently center on the most appropriate minimum age in order to ‘trigger’ resources perceived to be more readily available through the formal youth justice system than the social welfare system for youth under the minimum age of criminal responsibility (see [5, 19,19,21]).

  3. Meaningful consequences, more generally, are also discussed in R. v. B.W.P., ([28]) S.C.J. No. 27; R. v. B.V.N., [2006] S.C.J. No. 27.

  4. Given the varying approaches of individual provinces and territories to youth justice under the YCJA, our sample may not necessarily fully illuminate national trends, which must be recognized.

  5. The authors do not claim to have completed a grounded theory research project, i.e., generating theory. Instead, a coding strategy that was informed by some procedures outlined by Strauss and Corbin [37] was adopted.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Memorial University, 232 Prince Phillips Drive, St. John’s, NF, Canada

    Rosemary Ricciardelli & Adrienne Peters

  2. University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Michael Adorjan

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  1. Rosemary Ricciardelli
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Correspondence to Rosemary Ricciardelli.

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Ricciardelli, R., Adorjan, M. & Peters, A. Increased clarity or continued ambiguity? Correctional officers’ experiences of the evolving Canadian youth justice legislation. Crime Law Soc Change 71, 503–523 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-018-9801-z

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