Sociology: Youth Offenders

The Youth Criminal Justice Act in Canada towards our young offenders concentrates an enormous amount of effort on the ruling of the young person’s crime. They decide if the person will undergo extrajudicial measures such as formal letters to parents written by the officer or the prosecutors, or if they will be referred to a youth organisation for delinquents. If the crime is more severe, they will undergo a trial in the youth division and we will then decide of their consequence(s): community service, probation, jail time, and many more. However, the justice system does not often pay a whole lot of attention towards the reason that the young offender committed the crime as well as his or her environment and social class. We live in a society where the social hierarchy determines the criminals. Have you ever noticed that the majority of criminals sitting in our jails were part of the lowest hierarchy class and were mostly poor?

I believe that the powerless minority refuses to conform to the values of the society they are living in. There is a strong domination by the higher classes and this ruling class sees the behaviour of the minority group as delinquency, which is in fact why crime is concentrated at the bottom of the hierarchy. Have you ever wondered why socialist societies have less crime? It is because they don’t have hierarchy conflicts! In Canada, I believe that there are crimes that are committed in all classes, but the lowest one is the target because the highest class has the more power. The people in the lowest category know that they are seen as non conformists, which is when they start to believe in this assumption. Not only that, but the economic situation is often at the source of the youth crimes. How can ineffective and unheard voices get out of a vicious, accusing circle of misdemeanour?

I believe that we should pay more attention to the youth offender’s situation, both economic and social, as well as the reason they committed this crime before we assume they are culpable without reason and put them away. I am not saying that we should give every young offender a blank slate, but instead of sending an approximate 25 000 young offenders to jail every year in Canada (Statistics Canada), we should evaluate their situation as well as their psychological background to understand them. We have such high prejudice of young Blacks, Hispanics, Latinos, Aboriginals, and many more that it is almost certain for 142 over 1000 blacks to get arrested and searched, compared to 19 over 1000 whites (1997-1998). (This article written by CBC News goes in depth about racial profiling). Why is it always the minority that suffers from the law?

In conclusion, the hierarchy, the economic status of every class and the social norms are responsible for youth offenders. We should help our young offenders to escape this vicious, accusative and prejudicial circle of crime instead of digging their hole deeper and finding the easy way out. Evaluations made by psychologists should be done, as well as a search of the offender’s background, including the economic and social aspects. The understanding of our young offenders as well as therapy would help shape their futures into industrious and productive ones.