Volume 39, No. 2
April 1997
Risk
prediction and re-offending: Aboriginal and non-aboriginal offenders
James Bonta, Carol LaPrairie, and Suzanne Wallace-Capretta
Young
children's legal knowledge and reasoning ability
Michele Peterson-Badali, Rona Abramovitch, and Juliane Duda
The generality of deviance: Replication over
two decades with a Canadian sample of adjudicated boys
Marc LeBlanc et Stéphane Girard
Commentary
C.19, An Act to Amend the Young Offenders Act and the Criminal
Code - "Getting Tougher?"
Maureen McGuire
Current
Research
Book
Reviews
Canadian Books. Tom Gabor and André Normandeau.
Books
Received
Coming Events
Memo to
Authors
Abstracts/Résumés
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Risk
prediction and re-offending: Aboriginal and non-aboriginal offenders
James Bonta
Solicitor General Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
Carol LaPrairie
Department of Justice, Ottawa, Ontario
and
Suzanne Wallace-Capretta
Solicitor General Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
This research
assesses offender risk and needs and the prediction of recidivism
for a Manitoba sample of aboriginal and non-aboriginal probationers.
The major finding was that a risk/needs classification instrument
originally developed on a sample of non-aboriginal offenders demonstrated
predictive validity among aboriginal offenders. Establishing the validity
of the Manitoba Risk-Needs Scale with aboriginal offenders also implies
that the risk factors are similar for aboriginal and non-aboriginal
offenders. While some of the individual items did not predict as consistently
for the "treaty" group as for the metis/non-status group,
important factors such as criminal history, substance abuse, and criminal
peers demonstrated good predictive validity. The findings support
a social psychological perspective of criminal conduct that views
risk-needs factors as the same for groups regardless of culture and
race.
Young
children's legal knowledge and reasoning ability
Michele Peterson-Badali
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Ontario
Rona Abramovitch
and
Juliane Duda
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
The present
study examined age related changes in children's knowledge and reasoning
about legal issues presumed to be important in terms of the capacity
to participate meaningfully in the juvenile justice system. Sixty-seven
7 - 12-year-old subjects from two different settings, a laboratory
school and a treatment program for police-referred children at risk
for criminal offending, participated in a semistructured interview
containing two vignettes. Each story depicted a youth who had committed
a criminal offence, was charged, and retained a lawyer. Subjects were
asked a number of legal knowledge questions, had to decide what the
youth should plead, then justified their choices. While subjects showed
some basic legal knowledge, many were unclear about essential aspects
of the lawyer-client relationship, and most failed to mention important
foundations of jurisprudence. However, plea choices were largely consistent
with the level of evidence in the vignette, suggesting that subjects
were able to identify and use relevant legal information in decision-making,
and few gave morally-based explanations for their choices. Age and
sample differences in knowledge and reasoning emerged. Implications
and limitations of the study are discussed.
The
generality of deviance: Replication over two decades with a Canadian
sample of adjudicated boys
Marc LeBlanc and Stéphane Girard
École de psychoéducation, Groupe de Recherche sur les
adolescents en difficulté,
Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec
Over the last
twenty years, numerous studies have proposed that various deviant
behaviours are part of a latent construct labeled "general deviance".
Two objectives are pursued in this study. The first objective was
the cross-cultural replication of the presence of the construct of
general deviance for French-speaking adjudicated boys. The second
objective was to explore the question of the stability of general
deviance over two decades: the seventies and the nineties. The results
of the confirmatory factor analysis for both age groups and for both
decades support the presence of a construct of general deviance.
C.19
An Act to
amend the Young Offenders Act and the Criminal Code
"Getting Tougher?"
Maureen McGuire
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Bill C-37,
An Act to Amend the Young Offenders Act and the Criminal Code, was
introduced in Parliament June 2, 1994, passed as C.19 by the Senate
on June 21, 1995, and proclaimed in force December 1, 1995. It represents
the most significant change to the youth justice system since the
introduction of the Y.O.A. in 1982. Major changes have been made to
the processes involving young offenders, from investigative procedures,
through judicial intervention, to the administration of dispositions
and the maintenance of records. Above all, the spirit of the Act,
embodied in the Declaration of Principle, has been adjusted to reflect
new approaches to the attainment of the two primary objectives of
the system: rehabilitation of offending youths, and protection of
the public. This paper examines the major areas of change brought
about by C.19, and the potential effect the changes will have upon
the administration of youth justice.
