13 - US youth justice policy transfer in Canada: we'll take the symbols but not the substance

Summary

Introduction

On an average day in 1997 there were 4,687 youths in custodial facilities in Canada (a rate of 192.13 per 100,000) and by 2005–6 there were 1,987 (a rate of 77.42 per 100,000). Canada has a rather lengthy history of being concerned about the overuse of custody for youths and has struggled for some time to reduce it. In 1965 a government committee released the first report on youth justice and noted great concern about the use of court and custody for minor offences (Department of Justice 1965). Since then, most government reports have reiterated those concerns. However, during the late 1980s onwards the Canadian public became increasingly concerned about crime and wanted the government to ‘toughen-up’ the youth justice system. The government was therefore in a difficult position – for political reasons it felt that it should respond to the public, but there were also the persistent concerns that custody was actually being overused. How Canada managed to reduce the use of imprisonment for youths during an era where there was considerable pressure from the public to ‘toughen-up’ the youth justice system is the focus of this chapter. More generally, this chapter uses Canada's youth justice reforms to explore the limits of policy convergence and policy transfer between Canada and the USA. Youth justice policy in Canada appears to be driven more by social, political and cultural specificities and less by simple policy transfer from the USA.