Volume 40, No. 2
April 1998
Editorial
Julian V. Roberts
Young
people's knowledge of the Young Offenders Act and the youth justice
system
Michele Peterson-Badali and Christopher J. Koegl
Changes
in police charging of young offenders in Ontario and Saskatchewan
after 1984
Peter J. Carrington
Deterring
economic crimes: The case of tax evasion
Kimberly N. Varma and Anthony N. Doob
Is the "quality" of youth violence becoming more serious?
Anthony N. Doob and Jane B. Sprott
Penal Justice
File
Scott Clark
Book
Reviews
BAYLEY: Police for the Future
Philip C. Stenning
SHOEMAKER:
International Handbook on Juvenile Justice
Philip Johnston
SHICHOR
and SECHREST: Three Strikes and You're Out - Vengeance as Public Policy
Guy Lemire
CLARKE:
Preventing Mass Transit Crime
Maurice Cusson
LATESSA
and ALLEN: Corrections in the Community
Henry Benoit
SCHISSEL:
Blaming Children: Youth Crime, Moral Panics and the Politics of Hate
Aaron Doyle
REINER:
Policing
André Normandeau
GARAPON
et SALAS: La République pénalisée. ZEMMOUR: Le
coup d'état des juges. BERNAT de CÉLIS: Drogues: consommation
interdite. HAESEVOETS: L'enfant victime d'inceste. DE CLERCQ: Urgences
psychiatriques et interventions de crise
André Normandeau
Books
Received
Coming
Events
Memo
to Authors
Abstracts/Résumés
Only abstracts of full articles are contained in these Web pages.
Research notes and commentaries are usually not summarized into abstracts.
Readers who need the complete texts should contact the CCJA and subscribe
to the Journal. They can also purchase single copies of back issues
that are still in stock.
Young
people's knowledge of the Young Offenders Act and the youth justice
system
Michele Peterson-Badali
Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology,
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
and
Christopher J. Koegl
Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
Underlying
the currently harsh criticism of the Young Offenders Act (YOA) is
a public perception that young people possess a sophisticated knowledge
of the youth justice system that has allowed them to "beat the
system". There are virtually no data regarding young people's
knowledge of the YOA that would permit an examination of this assumption.
Using questionnaire and semi-structured interview techniques, the
present study assessed the knowledge of 730 10- to17-year-olds and
young adult students from 6 Canadian cities concerning a number of
YOA issues, including age boundaries, dispositions, procedures, youth
court records, transfer to adult court, roles of legal personnel,
etc. Exploratory data were also collected on 30 young offenders from
an open custody facility in Toronto. Level of knowledge of students
and young offenders varied depending on the particular issue addressed.
Both groups demonstrated poor knowledge regarding the disposition
of youth court records and critical age boundaries of the YOA. With
respect to certain questions (e.g., the role of defence counsel),
the pattern of knowledge in young offenders was different from the
students and appeared to reflect young offenders' direct experience
with the legal system. Age and regional differences in students' knowledge
emerged with respect to a number of issues. Implications and limitations
of the study are discussed.
Changes
in police charging of young offenders in Ontario and Saskatchewan
after 1984
Peter J. Carrington
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
This paper
uses data for Ontario and Saskatchewan to test the hypothesis proposed
by Carrington and Moyer (1994) that the reduction in police diversion
of young offenders in Canada during the first 5 years of the Young
Offenders Act - that is, the increase in the proportion of apprehended
young offenders who were charged - was due to higher proportions charged
among the 16- and 17-year-olds added to the jurisdiction of the youth
justice system in the majority of provinces and territories. Analysis
of age-specific data on charging of young offenders in these two provinces
in 1995 suggests that the addition of 16- and 17-year-olds accounts
for about half of the observed increase in police charging of young
offenders after 1984, and that the other half is due to increased
charging of 12- to 15-year-olds.
Deterring
economic crimes: The case of tax evasion
Kimberly N. Varma and Anthony N. Doob
Centre de Criminology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
Criminal justice
policies and measures for reform almost invariably include some aspect
of deterrence-based models in their attempt to control crime. It is
believed that making the costs of offences more onerous than the derived
benefits will inhibit individuals from committing crimes. This study
explores the utility of deterrence theory for criminal justice by
examining it in the context of tax evasion. Tax evasion is useful
in examining deterrence since it occurs in a setting in which the
conditions for deterrence are most likely to exist. In this study,
Canadian survey data were examined to gain an understanding of the
effect of criminal justice sanctions on tax evasion. Findings suggest
that perceived penalties are not as important to decisions about evading
tax as are perceptions of the possibility of being apprehended. Some
implications of this finding are that strategies of deterrence based
upon penalty size may be ineffective if individuals contemplating
tax evasion do not think they will be caught. This study raises questions
about the adequacy of compliance strategies based upon the severity
of sanctions, and discusses regulatory measures that lie outside of
the criminal justice system which may hold more promise.
Is
the "quality" of youth violence becoming more serious?
Anthony N. Doob and Janes B. Sprott
Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
This paper
examines the assertion that the "quality" of youth violence
is getting worse in that violent acts are becoming "more"
violent. No evidence is found to support such and assertion. Across
Canada, in the five years ending in 1995-6, the increase in the rate
of violent cases in youth court is due to an increase in the number
of the most minor assaults. There is no increase in the rate at which
the more serious assaults are being brought to court. For girls the
data are essentially the same: large increases in minor assaults and
no increase in the most serious assaults. In general, as one would
expect, girls are less involved than boys in all levels of assault,
particularly the more serious forms.
