1. Introduction

The year 2023 marked the 20th anniversary of the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA). This Act governs Canada’s youth criminal justice system (CJS) and applies to youth, aged 12 to 17, who have, or are alleged to have committed a criminal offence. The Act reinforces the fundamental differences between the youth CJS and the adult CJS, both in terms of principles and processes. The youth CJS considers youth’s lower level of maturity and provides enhanced procedural protections. It also places a greater emphasis on diversion and out-of-court responses, where appropriate, to allow early and effective intervention and to provide community-based responses to youth crime, while avoiding the negative effects of custody. Since coming into force, the YCJA has provided a framework for a fairer and more effective treatment for youth involved in the system, such as increased out-of-court responses and lower youth incarceration rates.

Using the State of the Criminal Justice System (SOCJS) Youth-Adapted Framework, this edition of the SOCJS report focuses on the performance of the youth CJS from 2017/2018 to 2021/2022.^{Footnote 3} It provides a trend-analysis of available data for all 32 performance indicators across 9 youth-adapted expected outcomes. For information on the YCJA and the various experiences of youth with the CJS, see the SOCJS Dashboard page on Evolution of Canada’s YCJA.

1.1 Background

In 2019, Justice Canada launched the first national performance monitoring framework for Canada’s criminal justice system (CJS). The State of the Criminal Justice System Framework (“the Framework”), which was developed through extensive research and consultation,^{Footnote 4} identifies nine goals (i.e., expected outcomes) for the Canadian CJS, measured by key performance indicators that draw upon data from various CJS partners and stakeholders (click here for more details). The information from the Framework is presented through a State of the Criminal Justice System (SOCJS) report^{Footnote 5} and an online Dashboard.

At the time, most Framework indicators were reflective of the experiences of adults in the police, court and correctional systems, and were based on legislation relevant to the adult population. The youth CJS is fundamentally different from the adult system, both in terms of population group and process. As a result, the Framework did not comprehensively reflect the impact of the CJS on youth.

To address this gap, the Research and Statistics Division at Justice Canada adapted the SOCJS Framework to a youth-specific context (i.e., individuals between the ages of 12 to 17 years). The adapted Framework was informed by consultations with experts from Justice Canada and other federal departments such as the Correctional Service of Canada, the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat and the Youth Secretariat at Canadian Heritage, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Statistics Canada, as well as provincial and territorial governments through the Coordinated Committee of Senior Officials – Youth Justice.^{Footnote 6} Section 2 below provides an overview of the Framework, listing all nine adapted expected outcomes and associated indicators. To complement the SOCJS Youth-Adapted Framework, a population-based theme on Youth on the SOCJS Dashboard was developed, which provides an overview of youth experiences with the CJS as victims, survivors, accused and offenders.

1.2 Limitations

Canada’s youth and adult CJS are designed to ensure public safety by protecting Canadians from those who violate the law, and by holding these individuals accountable while also providing them support for rehabilitation. The CJS consists of several interrelated systems designed to work along a continuum; police, courts and corrections work together within a broader social system with the goal of delivering fair and equitable justice and balance the needs of victims, survivors, accused, offenders, and communities. While the laws regulating the CJS are the same across Canada, the administration of the systems differs across the provinces and territories. The purpose of the Framework is to provide a national portrait of Canada’s CJS (where possible), and these indicators may not reflect some of the differences in processes and practices across the country. In addition, for some indicators, such as those with information on Indigenous and racialized identity, data may only be available for certain jurisdictions (i.e., national estimates are not available).

While the focus of this report is on youth aged 12 to 17, some indicators, such as those capturing self-reported experiences of victimization, only present data on the experiences of youth aged 15 to 17 years old. This data gap is intrinsically linked with the challenges of surveying a vulnerable population such as youth. Where counts are too low, indicators may include young adults up to the age of 34.

The report assesses the performance of the CJS based on the indicators included in the Framework. There exist other relevant indicators that can provide further information on the performance of the system. Where appropriate, additional contextual information is included in the report. Further, where available, new indicators are considered for inclusion in the Framework.^{Footnote 7}

When interpreting the information presented in this report, it is important to consider the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the CJS and the people in contact with it. For example, in 2019/2020, public health measures were put in place, which temporarily closed, postponed and/or restricted Canadian court proceedings. In 2021/2022, the courts continued to face pandemic-related challenges, along with increasing court backlog and delays.^{Footnote 8} The pandemic also had an impact on trends in criminal activities, including the number and types of crimes reported, and brought temporary changes to incarceration practices.^{Footnote 9} For an in-depth analysis of the performance of the CJS during the first two years of the pandemic, see the State of the Criminal Justice System’s Impact of COVID-19 on the Criminal Justice System.

Finally, it is important to understand that many factors contribute to the experiences of youth within the CJS, such as their age, gender,^{Footnote 10} sexual orientation, Indigenous identity, ethno-cultural background, family type and living arrangements, family socio-economic status, immigrant status, disability, geography, mental health, and contact with other social systems like the child welfare system. These different characteristics intersect and overlap to create unique and different lived experiences. Structural inequalities and systemic discrimination also play a role in shaping the experiences and treatment of youth within the CJS. Where feasible, intersectional data analyses are presented. However, some information may not be collected or may not be available due to the low counts of youth involved in the CJS.^{Footnote 11} For more information, see the SOCJS Dashboard’s Gender-Based Analysis Plus page and Youth Theme, including the pages on Indigenous Youth and Black Youth.

Footnotes

Footnote 3

Note that the reporting timeframe for each indicator varies based on availability of data, with some indicators having less than five years of data. For this reason, specific timeframes are indicated for each indicator. For some indicators, data from 2016/2017 may be included if more recent data are not yet available.

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Footnote 4

This was developed in consultation with key federal, provincial, and territorial government partners, community organizations, academics, Canadians, CJS stakeholders, as well as experts in the areas of: criminal justice policy; performance measurement; Indigenous justice; and Indigenous legal traditions. See the State of the Criminal Justice System Methodology Report for more information on the methods used to develop Canada’s national performance monitoring Framework for the CJS.

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Footnote 5

See the inaugural 2019 State of the Criminal Justice System Report, the first assessment of the performance of the Canadian CJS.

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Footnote 6

It is important to note that the goal was not to deviate from the SOCJS Framework, but rather to apply a youth-lens to current indicators and add key national youth-specific indicators, where appropriate and relevant.

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Footnote 7

See the Data Development section on the SOCJS Dashboard.

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Footnote 8

Action Committee on Court Operations in Response to COVID-19 2022.

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Footnote 9

Department of Justice 2022a.

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Footnote 10

Traditionally, national statistical offices, including Statistics Canada, have collected and disaggregated data by sex assigned at birth (male and female), and this data continues to be used as the basis for a large part of gender-based analysis. However, the Western concept of gender has evolved to recognize that gender exists on a continuum with individuals identifying as women, men, neither, both or other gender identities. In response to evolving social contexts and data needs, statistical offices around the world have begun altering the way they collect information on sex and gender to be more inclusive of gender diversity. For example, Statistics Canada has begun including a gender question in some surveys to better capture gender diversity in the population. This report uses the terms “female youth” and “male youth”; it does not present data on other gender identities due to data availability and low counts. At times, the terms “women” and “men” are also used in the place of “female adults” and “male adults.” Please refer to the original data source for more information.

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Footnote 11

For example, while the General Social Survey collects data from Indigenous people, the counts are too low to report for some indicators, such as witnessing family violence during childhood.

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Date modified:: 2024-07-25

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1. Introduction

1.1 Background

1.2 Limitations