Chapter 3 - the "Facts" of Youth Crime

Question 1

Charges laid for behaviours that are not generally considered to be criminal (failure to appear in court).

Answer 1

Administrative Charges

Question 2

Offences that involve interference with the administration of justice. These can criminalize youth more than neccessary because of net widening​.

Answer 2

Administrative Offences

Question 3

Statistics on crime and other social behaviour are deemed so when they are grouped into categories that make it impossible to match individuals on other characteristics.

Answer 3

Aggregated

Question 4

• “The Safe Streets and Communities Act”
• A Conservative majority introduced controversial changes to the YCJA
• Protection of public was primary goal
• The massive omnibus bill gave additional powers to correctional officers.
• The goal was to
  
  • simplify pretrial detention guidelines
  • redefine serious offences to those punishable by 5 years custody
  • expand definition of violent offence
  • add deference and denunciation to principles.
• It created more avenues for tougher sentencing and record keeping, thus changing the nature of the YCGA to a much more punitive act.

Answer 4

Bill C-10

Question 5

Refers to a hypothesized cause-and-effect relationship between executions and an increase in the homicide rate. This hypothesis proposes this relationship occurs because executions diminish the public’s respect for life. Represents the opposite of a deterrent effect

Answer 5

Brutalization Effect

Question 6

Compiles youth court data and publishes summaries for country on a yearly basis

Answer 6

Centre for Justice Statistics (and Department of Justice)

Question 7

Refers to statistics that indicate the rate at which police process criminal incidents as charged offences.

Answer 7

Clearance Rates

Question 8

A general or abstract term that refers to a class or group of more specific terms (“crime” refers to any number of specific behaviours”).

Answer 8

Concept

Question 9

• Kept by individual courts; don’t measure youth crime, just those dealt with by courts.
• These are normally not open to public scrutiny
• The Centre for Justice Statistics (& dept. of Justice) compiles youth court data and publishes summaries for country on a yearly basis
• Problematic to make comparisons across years given provincial differences

Answer 9

Court Statistics

Question 10

Describe changes between the JDA, YOA, and YCJA with regard to crime

Answer 10

• We can examine crime rates as related to historic policies
• Higher crime rates under the YOA are likely the result of changes in legislation rather than increases in offending among youth
• The YCJA has resulted in increased diversion and lower charge rates
• Measures of severity add a new interpretive layer to statistics

Question 11

Describe the Crime Funnel

Answer 11

Question 12

A Statistics Canada categorization scheme for classifying police crime statistics as property, violent, and “other”.

Answer 12

Crime Index

Question 13

• An index that assigns a weight to each offence based on its seriousness and the proportion of prison sentences. Measures how much crime is taking place at any time/place to be compared against another time/place)

Answer 13

Crime Severity Index (CSI)

Question 14

“Aging out”

In the field of criminology, it is generally defined as the cessation of offending or other antisocial behavior.

Answer 14

Desistance

Question 15

Knowledge that is based on observation, experience, or experiment rather than on theory or philosophy.

Answer 15

Empirical

Question 16

A method in which research is conducted outside of a laboratory, in the setting where the behaviour of interest is occurring.

Answer 16

Field Research

Question 17

sensationalistic focus not representative of reality. It can create a sense that crime is a larger problem than it really is.

Answer 17

Media waves

Question 18

Used to describe the effects of providing alternatives to incarceration or diversion programs to direct offenders away from court. Results in a greater number of individuals being controlled by the criminal justice system; many fear trial who likely would be found innocent and agree to diversion programs.

Answer 18

Net-widening

Question 19

Describe Problems with Measuring

Answer 19

• Lying (malingering): about crime involvement and degree of victimization
• Recalling: Subjects may not recall victimization or involvement in crime
• Telescoping: people can think events were more recent than they were

Question 20

In Behavioural Science, refers to the extent to which variable measurement and research finding can be or have been repeated.

Answer 20

Reliability

Question 21

A prediction or assumption that, in being made, actually causes itself to become true.

Answer 21

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Question 22

A criminology questionaire survey in which individuals are asked to report on their involvement in criminal or delinquent activities.

Answer 22

Self-Report Survey

Question 23

• Usually government agencies mandated to perform various functions in the justice system, such as police, courts, and correctional institutions.
• These agencies produce their own reports about certain aspects of youth crime and are interpreted by them.
• The nature of the data, while standardized depends somewhat on subjective aspects of these agencies; police blitzing youth violence in the downtown can raise charge/arrest rates due to a higher police presence.

Answer 23

Social-Control Agencies

Question 24

• The media: fuels moral panics
• Police statistics: Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR), and UCR2 (victim/offender)
• Court statistics (court process, school records,

Field Research

• Self-report surveys
• Victimization surveys

Answer 24

Sources of Youth Crime Data

Question 25

Stat Warning

Answer 25

Stats don’t interpret themselves, we do

Question 26

A problem faced by researchers conducting self-report or victimization surveys. People tend to lump offences that may have occurred several years ago into something that occurred “last year”.

Answer 26

Telescoping

Question 27

Events investigated by the police as potentially criminal offences that are determined not to be offences.

Answer 27

Unfounded Offences

Question 28

The extent to which research variables have been measured in a way that is consistent with the theoretical concept, or what was intended.

Answer 28

Validity

Question 29

A survey questionnaire that asks individuals whether they have been victimized over a particular time period, and in what ways.

Answer 29

Victimization Survey

Question 30

Describe Youth Crime Severity

Answer 30

• property crime is the most common
• violent offences are less common but attract the most attention
• sexual assault cases are rare but a concern
• Murder is rare among youth but also receives attention.

Question 31

Policies related to the intolerance of behaviour that is considered undesirable.

Answer 31

Zero-Tolerance Policies