Volume 40, No. 4
Octobre 1998
What's
intermediate about "intermediate" sanctions?: The case of
young offender dispositions in Canada
Voula Marinos
The
dangerous offender provisions: Are they targeting the right offenders?
James Bonta, Ivan Zinger, Andrew Harris, and Debbie Carrière.
Marijuana,
juveniles, and the police: What high-school students believe about
detection and enforcement
Jessica Warner, Benedikt Fischer, Ricardo Albanes, and Oren Amitay
Risk
for court contact and predictors of an early age for a first court
contact among a sample of high risk youths: A survival analysis approach
David M. Day
Penal Justice
File
Scott Clark
Books
Reviews
ERICSON and HAGGERTY: Policing the Risk Society
Jean-Paul Brodeur
Books
Received
Coming
Events
Instructions
to Authors
Index
to Volume 40
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.
What's
intermediate about "intermediate" sanctions?: The case of
young offender dispositions in Canada
Voula Marinos
Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
This analysis
of youth court dispositions across Canadian provinces focuses on the
combinations of punishments imposed, and in particular, the use of
"intermediate" sanctions. The study challenges simplistic
conceptualizations of punishment - that sanctions differ solely on
a dimension of severity, and that sanctions are highly fluid and flexible
entities which can easily be made equivalent at sentencing. Recent
sentencing legislation in Canada suggests that judges should use intermediate
sanctions for young offenders as much as possible. Youth court data
reveal that custody for young offenders is frequently imposed, and
in particular, that the use of short custodial sentences has increased
since the introduction of the Young Offenders Act. The present analysis
suggests that intermediate sanctions lack the denunciatory power that
imprisonment possesses and that this will affect when and how they
are imposed. It is argued that this purpose of punishment is seen
by youth court judges as being required for violent, sexual and serious
property offences. For a certain level of offending across these serious
offences, denunciation is fulfilled by a short custodial term. In
fulfilling the minimum denunciatory component of the sentence through
short custody, judges are then able to impose intermediate sanctions.
Thus there is not much that is intermediate about "intermediate"
sanctions on certain dimensions. The theoretical and policy implications
of the findings of the use of intermediate sanctions for young offenders
in Canada are explored.
The
dangerous offender provisions: Are they targeting the right offenders?
James Bonta
Solicitor General of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
and
Andrew Harris, Ivan Zinger, and Debbie Carriere
Psychology Department, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario
In order to
deal with very high risk, violent offenders, the Canada Criminal Code
(CCC) provides for the indeterminate incapacitation of these offenders.
The Dangerous Offender (DO) provisions of the CCC have been in force
since 1977 and the courts have declared only 204 offenders as DOs.#
One of the intentions of the DO provisions was to target nonsexual
offenders in addition to sex offenders, a criticism of the earlier
Dangerous Sexual Offender legislation. There was also criticism that
the DO provisions may not target the truly dangerous offender. The
present study compared 64 DOs to a known group of violent offenders
(n=32) on a range of variables. The DOs showed many similarities to
the comparison group of violent offenders suggesting that the DOs
represent a potentially violent group. However, the majority of DOs
are comprised of sex offenders. In addition, objective risk scales
may have limited use with the present DO population because the scales
were not developed with sex offenders in mind. Nevertheless, steps
to improve the identification of dangerous offenders are suggested
by the research.
Marijuana,
juveniles and the police: What high-school students believe about
detection and enforcement
Jessica Warner, Benedikt, Fisher, and Oren Amitay
Addiction Research Foundation, Toronto, Ontario
and
Ricardo Albanes
Access Alliance Multicultural Health Centre, Toronto, Ontario
This study
examines how high-school students calculate the odds of being arrested
for possessing marijuana or for using it. Particular attention is
paid to how students categorize the motives and practices of the police
with whom they or their peers might come into contact. The results
are based on 49 focus-groups with a total of 278 adolescents, and
reveal four basic assumptions: (1) marijuana has little or no effect
on demeanor, and its use by itself is thus unlikely to attract the
attention of the police; (2) the likeliest outcome of an encounter
with the police is confiscation and not arrest; (3) many police officers
use marijuana; and (4) ethnicity and social class are crucial variables
in determining both the likelihood and outcome of an encounter with
the police.
Risk
for court contact and predictors of an early age for a first court
contact among a sample of high risk youths: A survival analysis approach
David M. Day,
Mississauga, Ontario
This study
examined, over a 4 to 11 year period, the rate of court contact and
predictors of an early age for a first court contact for a sample
of 203 youth who were seen at a children's mental health center, between
the ages of 6 to 12 years, for conduct problem behaviours. Survival
analyses revealed that the probabilities for a male and female to
have court contact by age 18 were 65.9% and 32.9%, respectively. The
clinician's rating of the child's likeability was a significant predictor
of an early age for first court contact for males and a history of
abuse was a significant predictor for females. The implications of
these findings for early identification of high risk youth are discussed.
