C. Young offender policy and public
perception The empirical and statistical evidence on the youth crime rate to date shows that youth crime generally is not increasing and, although violent crime may be increasing, it has not reached a level that should alarm us (Doob et al, 1995). However, there is, as Grossberg (1992:284) suggests, an "affective epidemic" throughout North America. Regardless of the empirical evidence, it is clear that "youth gone wild" is a popularly recognized and increasingly forceful area of social concern. There is currently a consensual moment of crisis concerning youth wherein the public exhibits affective responses of despair, desire and fear with respect to youth generally, and young offenders in particular. Begin (1993) argues that a number of factors fuel the public's fear of crime. First, there is a common misconception in regard to the actual amount of violent crime in Canada. A public opinion poll conducted in 1990 found that 75% of Canadians believed violent crime accounted for 30% of all crime. In reality, violent offences constitute less than 10% of crimes reported to the police. Second, one third of Canadians believed that violent crime in Canada was the same or worse than violent crime in the United States. In 1991, there were 24,000 homicide cases in the United States, and only 753 in Canada. Despite the overwhelming fear of violence, crime in Canada is mainly a problem of property loss or damage. Finally, the media are often accused of fuelling a climate of fear. Begin (1993) argues that the media's tendency to focus on sensational and spectacular criminal events distorts the picture of typical criminality, creates the impression that crime is rampant, and heightens public fears. A 1993 poll reported that 64% of Canadians felt that the "behaviour" of young people had "become worse" compared to a similar poll in 1990 which reported only 47% of Canadians indicating such an opinion (General Social Survey, 1993). In addition, one in three Canadians believe that the rate of violence in Canada is the same as or worse than that of the United States (Abraham, 1993) . These misconceptions have been promoted through more and more media attention drawn to those rare cases of violent youth behaviour in Canada and the United States as a form of "public education". The reality of the youth crime picture is, however, quite different. When one looks at the homicide rate, persons under the age of 18 years accounted for 6% of all persons accused of homicide in 1992-93 which is down from 9% for the previous year. In comparing youth homicide rates between 1972 and 1993, there is no discernible trend in the number of persons charged between the ages of 12 to 17 years. The numbers range from a high of 68 in 1975 to a low of 35 in 1987 (Silverman, 1990; Meloff and Silverman, 1992; Silverman and Kennedy, 1993). Comparing the youth homicide rate in Canada with that of the United States, the US crime statistics show a difference in magnitude of three or four times that of the Canadian data. The Canadian rate of youth homicide is only one-tenth of the rate of New York City (Silverman and Kennedy, 1993; Zimring, 1984). Corrado and Turnbull (1992) report that there were between 700 and 800 youth gang murders in Los Angeles in 1992 which runs in sharp contrast to the total homicide rate including both youth and adults for the whole of Canada at 630 homicides. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported over 24,000 homicides in the United States during 1992-93 indicative of a rate which is four times that of the Canadian homicide rate (Fedorowycz, 1994). The Canadian public largely overestimates both the rate of offending by juveniles and the rate of violent crime committed by young people. In a recent survey, respondents were asked to estimate the percentage of crimes in Canada that is committed by young people. The average percentage response was 32% with a range between 5% and 80% of all crimes committed in Canada being committed by youth. The respondents were then asked to estimate of those young people committing criminal offences, what percentage of crimes committed did they think were violent. Again, the average percentage response was 31% with a range of 1% and 80% of all young offender crimes involving violence (Reid-MacNevin, forthcoming). According to police reported crime statistics for 1993, youth crime accounted for 22% of all Criminal Code violations and the proportion of youths charged with violent offences was 18% (Chard, 1995). Of the respondents in the survey on public perception of youth crime, 65% overestimated the amount of crime committed by young people and 70% overestimated the amount of violent crime committed by young persons. Hartnagel and Baron (1995) report on data taken from the 1993 Alberta Survey with 1261 respondents in which respondents were asked to agree or disagree on a seven-point scale with the following statements: Young offenders who commit a second offence should be tried in adult courts; and, Youth courts have become too lenient with young offenders (in general). The data clearly indicated agreement with these statements with only 9% disagreeing that youth should not be tried in adult court on a second offence, and 6% indicating disagreement with the view that youth courts are too lenient. This data suggests that the Canadian public has a punitive view of the youth justice system. Roberts (1994) argues that the public has a highly negative view of the YOA but have little awareness of its provisions and effects. He goes on to suggest that people do not understand the philosophy nor provisions of the legislation and "probably regard it as yet another manifestation of leniency on the part of the criminal justice system" (p.43). Research on public attitudes toward young offenders from the United States has indicated that a majority of respondents in several studies did not favour giving young people the same sentences as adults. However, while the public appears to favour trying young people in adult court for serious crimes they do not support incarcerating convicted young people in adult prisons. In the recent study of 149 interviews conducted by Reid-MacNevin (forthcoming), 48% of the respondents felt that youths should be tried in adult court with the most frequent rationale that there is more punishment in the adult system. Like the research cited from the US, however, 59% of the respondents did not feel that young people should serve their sentences in adult institutions with the most frequent reason cited as the negative interaction between individuals within adult facilities. Of the respondents, 87% indicated that they felt that young offenders received treatment while being held in custody and 68% felt that conditions in young offender facilities were too liberal. However, when asked how familiar respondents were with young offender custodial settings, 62% indicated that they were not familiar with any young offender facility. When asked to estimate the cost of housing a young offender in a secure or closed custody facility for one year, 77% of the sample underestimated this cost and 53% of the respondents felt that it cost more to house an adult inmate than a young offender. Further 66% of the respondents overestimated the cost to supervise a young offender in the community for one year. When asked how familiar respondents were with the Young Offenders Act, the Ontario study by Reid-MacNevin found that 47% of the respondents were not very familiar or not at all familiar with the legislation and 60% of the sample indicated that most of their knowledge about the YOA was gained from the newspaper or media. Hartnagel and Baron (1995) asked respondents in the Alberta study whether the mass media pays to much attention to crime and the criminal justice system. A majority of respondents agreed (57%) with 20% strongly agreeing with this suggestion. There has been a considerable amount of research done on the public's fear of crime. Hartnagel and Baron (1995) asked respondents to indicate their level of fear of crime by responding on a four point scale to the question: How safe do you feel or would you feel walking alone in your neighbourhood at night? Of the respondents, 71% indicated that they felt safe. The same question was posed to respondents in the Reid-MacNevin study with 61% indicating that they felt safe. A significant difference between level of fear was found between males and females as has been shown in previous literature (Gartner & Doob, 1994) with males expressing less fear than females on this measure. It is instructive to look at the academic literature on the public's perception and fear of crime and the influence of the media which is one influence on public's "educational" knowledge base on crime. A study conducted in Britain utilizing the National Crime Survey which is similar to the General Social Survey distributed in Canada, to assess respondents' fear of crime, and the newspapers coverage of crimes in 26 cities. The results of this study indicated that while homicide constituted only 0.02% of all crimes represented in Uniform Crime Reports, it represented 30% of all crime stories presented in the newspapers and that stories of homicide affected respondents level of fear much more than any other type of story. However, this study provides additional information regarding the placement of the news story on crime in the newspaper within the first fifteen pages as elevating fear more than in other sections of the newspaper. Further, fear of crime was affected negatively when newspapers reported homicides which were non-local, suggesting that crime in other cities makes people feel safe by comparison (Liska and Baccaglini, 1990). The data taken from the Ontario survey by Reid-MacNevin reiterates this notion of feeling safe by comparison. The respondents in this study were, for the most part from the Guelph, Kitchener- Waterloo area. A significant relationship was found between the newspaper read and how safe a respondent felt walking alone in his/her neighbourhood. Of those respondents who indicated that they felt very safe walking alone in their neighbourhood, 60% indicated that they normally read either the Toronto Star or the Toronto Sun. Conversely, of those individuals who indicated that they felt very unsafe walking in their neighbourhood alone, 66% indicated that they were likely to read their local daily paper. When one considers the perceptions of the Canadian public as evidenced in the General Social Survey (1993), a similar trend emerges with few people (i.e. 10%) indicating that their neighbourhoods have more crime than other places in Canada. When respondents were interviewed in the Reid-MacNevin study in Ontario, 56% of the sample felt that 30% or less of the crimes committed in their neighbourhoods were committed by young persons with 62% of the respondents indicating theft and break and enter was the primary form of youth crime and 27% indicating vandalism as the primary form of crime committed by young offenders in their community. Further, when respondents were asked to estimate the rate of crime committed by young people, they were also asked to indicate whether they were referring to crime in their own neighbourhood when giving their response. Of the respondents, 75% indicated that they were referring to youth crime outside of their neighbourhood. The general public tends to focus, for the most part, on homicide cases and other serious violent offences which are few and far between, yet are sensationalised in the media. Young offenders accounted for only 6% of all homicide cases in Canada, in 1993, a 9% decrease from the previous year (Ogrodnik, 1994). Crime statistics are quite often reported in the media. An increase in crime, in particular violent crime makes headline news, but no change or a decrease in crime rates tend to get less coverage in the media. "An ordinary consumer of the mass media, therefore, would likely have encountered a number of stories in the past five years suggesting that crime has increased. The source and meaning of these statistics may not always be considered carefully. (Gartner & Doob, 1994:14) Thus, it is not surprising that the majority of Canadians believe youth crime is increasing. Furthermore, "if something goes awry that offends the public sense of 'justice' in these high profile cases, the natural tendency, in the absence of any other information is to generalize about the Act as a whole. Since the Act is seen to be soft in these few cases, then surely it must be soft on all youth crime. (Corrado et al., 1994:362) Youth crime is not rampant in Canada, yet the constant portrayal of high profile cases in the media assist in painting a dismal picture of youth crime in Canada. The public is not only misinformed about the issues of youth crime, but in many cases choose to ignore the realities of youth crime and make generalizations about all young offenders based on limited knowledge. Hebdige (1988:17) suggests that the portrayal of youth in society as
troublesome and troubling comes about at strategic points to make a
strong point about youth as a problem: Within society, youth has always been seen as symbolically central to the social order as both that which holds the potential for unbounded successes and that which holds the possibility of dismal failures. Youth crime can be seen as a loss of a particular vision of the social order and therefore is readily available to demonstrate the importance of prudence and caution. Crime is at some level a coming apart of order. Panics as the concentration of popular concern, trigger the structured responses of social institutions to be ready to respond to the possibility of a "crime wave". The result of the rhetoric of "concern" for youth which is noted as the young person's "best interests" is really a focus on the "best interests" of the social order. Youth is a time when the adult culture is learned and therefore is always subject to constant state intervention, guidance and surveillance. The ideology of protection facilitates such intervention to guarantee the smooth reproduction of social relations and ultimately maintain social order. Acland (1995:144) argues that it takes more than a perceived increase in the incidence of crime to constitute a moral panic. As youth are increasingly seen as dangerous and threatening, a more general panic among the public takes hold which is tied to an affective response or what he refers to as a "structure of feeling". Fear, panic and terror are lived responses to the "imagined" or real possibility of personal harm and this generalized fear of youth has become commonplace. The experiential condition of crisis organizes people's daily responses to and in the world. Fear, terror and a variety of anxieties about young people settle comfortably. The "violent" drive of youth has become taken for granted and rebellious acts are to be expected from youth. When such acts do occur, whether they are criminal or not, they are slotted into the appropriate criminal offences chronology. Acland (1995:146) concludes that the late twentieth century has seen a new conception of the period between childhood and adult: "where we have had a conception of the essential innocence of childhood, we now have another relation: the essential guilt of youth". Why has there been such an affective response of fear, terror and panic among the general public to youth crime in recent years? A number of explanations are plausible. It may be that the current "youth crisis" is more a reflection of the uncertainty that all Canadians feel regarding social and economic stability and is merely reflected in the policies and practices surrounding children and youth who have always been seen as a potential threat to the social order. Gilbert (1986) suggests that there was no actual rise in youth crime during the 1950's when there was an equally alarming public response to youth as that which is being experienced today. Bell (1960) who was writing at the height of the hysteria surrounding youth in the late 1950's speaks of the "myth of the crime wave" where youth in general and juvenile delinquents in particular became the focus of fears regarding a change in class, gender and racial boundaries. The paranoia experienced in the present day "youth crisis" has been seen at other points in history wherein the category of youth becomes seen as a problem. Another explanation may stem from changes in the demographic make up of the country. Cook and Laub (1986) report the ratio of adults (aged 18-65 years) to children (aged 10-17 years) in the United States. This data shows that this ratio has increased steadily from 3.49 in 1970 to 5.01 in 1983. They go on to project these ratios based on present demographic data and suggest the ratio will continue to increase to 5.34 in the year 2000. Considering the argument presented above regarding the ideology of protection, one might surmise that the greater the ratio of adults to children, the stronger the tendency to promote such state intervention directly. Further, the more adults there are in a society, the greater the likelihood of intervening in the surveillance of the culture of youth indirectly through the scrutiny of popular culture, the political process and the tolerance generally afforded to youth culture. The problem of attempting to solve the "youth crime problem" by suggesting that there is not a youth crime crisis is that the popular culture has created a "spectacle" of youth which has created an affective response among the public to be fearsome of and threatened by youth. Popular culture has certain determinant political, ideological and economic effects which lead directly to the articulation of a commonsense experience of crisis. Rather than simply stating that the reality of youth crime in Canada is such that there is no need for alarm, it is more useful to engage in an awareness and understanding of the persistence of these powerful myths and determine the most suitable means of debunking the current "felt" crisis related to youth crime. It is our belief that Canadians are generally misinformed about the specifics regarding youth crime policy and practice and that if they were informed about the reality of the youth justice system, most Canadians would support the principle of the use of rehabilitation as being the most effective response to ameliorating the youth crime problem for both the young person and the long term protection of society. When one considers the results of public opinion surveys about criminal justice matters, it is interesting to note that for the most part, the public does not necessarily endorse harsher sanctions for criminal offenders. Doob (1994) suggests that when the public is asked simple questions, they will give simple responses. Conversely, when the public is asked more complex or thoughtful questions, they will give more thoughtful responses. He suggests that there is every reason to believe that the Canadian public would be just as thoughtful about young offenders as they were, in the case of the Canadian Sentencing Commission, about adult offenders (Doob and Roberts, 1983). In the 1993 Alberta survey of public attitudes toward youth crime, 87% of the respondents indicated that they felt that youth courts in Canada had become too lenient (Hartnagel & Baron, 1995). However, when these respondents were asked to express their views regarding deterring and rehabilitating young offenders, 44% of the respondents indicated that sending young people to jail would not stop them from committing offences. Of the respondents, 64% indicated that rehabilitating a young offender is more important than making the offender pay for the crime. Further, there was a significant relationship between those respondents who supported rehabilitation with less social control of young offenders as measured by their desire to move second time offenders to adult court. This data suggests that while there may be a widespread belief that youth courts are too lenient, the preferred option of more intrusive intervention in the court is based upon a desire or expectation for enhanced rehabilitation rather than retribution or deterrence. In the study of 150 respondents in Ontario, similar results regarding public perception of youth crime were found. While 65% of the respondents indicated that the biggest problem with the young offender system was that there was not enough punishment in the youth system or that young people did not have to face adult consequences, only 46% of the respondents felt that young persons should be tried in adult court. Of the respondents that indicated there was a need for more rehabilitation in the current young offender system, 64% considered themselves to be somewhat familiar with the current young offender system. It would appear that the more that one knows about the YOA, the more one recognizes the need for rehabilitation. (Reid-MacNevin, forthcoming). As has been pointed out by Doob (1994), crime levels among youth have little, if anything to do with the laws that govern youth crime. He goes on to suggest that, if the public could be convinced that the youth justice system can do little for crime, then it might consider not only more productive ways of dealing with youth crime but improve the actual operation of the youth justice system without the "baggage" of having to believe that youth crime can be solved within such a system (Doob, 1994:4). In the survey conducted by Reid-MacNevin discussed above, only 18% of those interviewed suggested that stricter legislation would prevent youth crime. Rather, respondents in this survey indicated the importance of a good education (27%), parental involvement (26%), and community involvement (24%) while only 5% suggested that nothing could be done to prevent youth crime. These results are encouraging and open the door to more dialogue with the community regarding more thoughtful and effective means of dealing with young persons who come in conflict with the law. |
|
|
|