Pubdate: Sun, 20 Dec 2009
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2009 Times Colonist
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/letters.html
Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Janet Bagnall

JAILING KIDS BRINGS A CRIME EXPLOSION

For a man who is described as very smart, Prime Minister Stephen 
Harper is oddly impervious to facts. Evidence can be stacked 
sky-high, yet his government dismisses as unfounded or wrong things 
that conflict with its ideology or political purposes.

If there is an election next year -- a possibility-- the 
Conservatives will bring out their law-and-order platform once again. 
The gun registry is already on its way out.

The next step is to throw into jail children unlucky enough to be 
charged with crimes.

During the 2008 election campaign, the Harper government called the 
current Youth Criminal Justice Act "an unmitigated failure" and swore 
to make young offenders "accountable to their victims and society."

It was a heartless piece of grandstanding against some of the 
country's most defenceless inhabitants, but one that will doubtless 
be resurrected. It shouldn't be.

Research published this year shows that jailing young people 
backfires badly. The tough law-and-order approach does the exact 
opposite of what the Conservatives claim it will.

A study by the Universite de Montreal's Richard Tremblay and Uberto 
Gatti of the University of Genoa found that putting young delinquents 
into detention with other troubled youngsters leads to increased criminality.

Youngsters who entered the juvenile justice system -- even briefly -- 
were nearly seven times more likely to be arrested for crimes in 
adulthood than similarly badly behaved youngsters who were kept out 
of the system. (The study, published in the Journal of Child 
Psychology and Psychiatry, followed 779 low-income youth in Montreal 
for 20 years.)

Jailing these youngsters meant they were 37 times more likely to be 
arrested again as adults. Even youngsters put on probation -- during 
which they could be exposed to other delinquent youngsters in 
counselling groups, for example -- were 14 times more likely to be 
arrested for a crime in adulthood.

"The problem is," Tremblay said in a statement accompanying the 
study, "that delinquent behaviour is contagious, especially among adolescents.

"Putting deviant adolescents together creates a culture of deviance, 
which increases the likelihood of continued criminal behaviour."

Tremblay said there are two solutions to the problem of peer 
contagion: Prevention programs that start before adolescence when 
children are more responsive to help; and avoiding or at least 
minimizing the concentration of delinquent youngsters in youth 
justice programs.

The Conservative "solution," on the other hand, is to start 
sentencing 14-year-olds to adult prison. If juvenile detention makes 
things worse, imprisoning young people with adult criminals virtually 
guarantees us a new crop of career criminals.

The cause of child delinquency is complex, according to the 
Tremblay-Gatti study, varying from child to child. There are no easy 
solutions. Effective intervention has to take into account the risk 
factors present in a child's family, friends, school and community. 
Growing up in an unstable family with a criminal background in a poor 
neighbourhood are risk factors for any child.

A second, much-publicized study this year found that Canada's 2003 
Youth Criminal Justice Act is viewed internationally as a model to 
follow. A principal aim of the law, enacted by the Liberal 
government, is to rehabilitate young people, reserving incarceration 
for serious, violent crime.

Since 2003, Canada's youth incarceration rate, once one of the 
world's highest, has dropped 36 per cent. Under the law, the justice 
system must try to find alternatives to jail such as community 
service or counselling. (There were 991 youths serving sentences in 2007-08.)

The Harper government argues that statistics show the 2003 law has 
not had the positive effect its fans claim it has.

In Canada between 1997 and 2006, the rate of violent crime climbed 12 
per cent among 12- to 17-year-olds. The homicide rate among 
youngsters during the same years rose 41 per cent.

What the government leaves out of these seemingly scary statistics is 
the following: 80 per cent of violent crime committed by youngsters 
is in the form of a simple assault, the least serious form of the 
offence. Homicide constitutes 0.05 per cent of youth crime. A murder 
committed by a youngster is rare. Variations are huge from year to year.

But the government is right about one thing: We should pay more 
attention to young delinquents. That means more money for research, 
for individual counselling, and to help schools deal with aggressive 
children. It does not mean jail.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart