Curbing Youth Violence in Canada

City announces initiatives to curb youth violence CBC news May 8, 2002; “The city(Toronto) will spend nearly $4.5 million on the initiative. The new programs include building a mobile skating park that can be taken to areas of the city where kids need the most help.”

“There also will be new basketball courts built, an increase in the number of youth drop-in programs, and a police anti-gang squad aimed at breaking up gangs and keeping young people from joining them.” Mel Lastman says, “these are all things that are needed to discourage kids from becoming criminals.”

“It's going to give kids something to do at night instead of doing nothing, I think a lot of kids are going to enjoy these facilities instead of hanging out in malls and getting into trouble.” Lastman says he's confident these programs will work, because they were developed with the help of the Toronto Youth Cabinet. It's a group of young people who say they represent the interests of the city's 300,000 youth."

More and more research indicates that juvenile crime and delinquency prevention programs not only have a positive impact on troubled youth, but are a good investment when compared with the costs associated with the behavior of serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders. A recent literature review identified prevention programs that provide positive influences in the lives of youth who misbehave or act out.

Programs that consistently demonstrated positive effects on youth at risk of developing delinquent behavior include those that strengthen the institutions of school and family in the life of the youth, such as smaller class sizes in early years of education; tutoring and cooperative learning; classroom behavior management, behavioral monitoring, and reinforcement of school attendance, progress, and behavior; parent training and family counseling; and youth employment and vocational training programs.

Programs considered promising include conflict resolution and violence prevention curriculum in schools; peer mediation; mentoring relationships; community service for delinquent youth; restrictions on the sale, purchase, and possession of guns; and intensified motorized patrol and community policing.

Doug McNally notes that 80% of all young males commit criminal acts at one point or another, but most of these are very minimal. “Criminal behavior … is often part of adolescence,” he says. “We need better ways to deal with it.”

He believes that the most effective way to do that is through early prevention and intervention. “As a society, we can save money if we do primary prevention.” This means “adopting a public health model in order to inoculate society against crises coming downstream. The focus needs to be on kids from prenatal to age six.”

“The best way of approaching crime prevention is through social development,” agrees Elaine Scott. She and the Council argue that only through broad efforts to improve living conditions, community life, and society in general can we hope to prevent crime. “The major priority should be children and youth. Communities and families are essential to any advancement on the issue.”

One of the few researchers in Canada who has done long-term research on children at risk and prevention efforts is Dr. Richard Tremblay of the Research Unit on Children's Psycho-Social Maladjustment at the University of Montreal. His research group studied the effect of preventive intervention with the families of physically aggressive boys in kindergarten. They concluded that intensive intervention during the first few years of elementary school can significantly reduce the risk of having delinquency and school problems later in life.

“It makes a long-term difference. The problem is that it's expensive. It takes two years of intensive intervention in the family and in school. We suggest it would be much better if intervention started early in the life of the child.”

Ex-police chief Doug McNally feels the investment in children would be well worth it. “I see our initiatives preventing or reducing costs on our health care system, our social support systems, our justice system,” he says. “We will save ourselves all kinds of money.” “We are spending 10 billion dollars a year at the back end of the justice system (courts and institutions), and no one is saying that we're getting value for our dollars,” says Dr. Petmell. “If you move that spending to the front end, you decrease victimization and you get more leverage to help with young people before they go down this route and get in trouble in the first place.”

According to many, the greatest threat to crime prevention is the cutbacks to social programs so prevalent in Canada today. Dr. Pennell warns that cutbacks in other areas are forcing into the justice system many youth who should be dealt with otherwise. The justice system is being called upon now to provide services that formerly would have been provided by schools and social service agencies.

The National Strategy on Community Safety and Crime Prevention aims to increase individual and community safety by equipping Canadians with the knowledge, skills and resources they need to advance crime prevention efforts in their communities. To accomplish this, the strategy adopts a social development approach, placing a particular emphasis on children, youth, women and Aboriginal peoples. The objectives of the national strategy are to:

• promote the integrated action of government and non-government partners to reduce crime and victimization;
• assist communities in developing and implementing community-based solutions to problems that contribute to crime and victimization, particularly as they affect children, youth, women and Aboriginal peoples; and
• increase public awareness of, and support for, effective approaches to crime prevention.

The strategy is aimed at reducing crime and victimization by addressing their root causes, and is based on the belief that action must take place at the community level. It is the people who live, work and play in a community who understand their area's resources, problems, unique needs and capacities.

The national strategy has three components: a Safer Communities Initiative; a Promotion and Public Education Program; and, the National Crime Prevention Centre.

CPSD, or Crime Prevention through Social Development, is a proactive, long term approach that is concerned with the socio-economic conditions that give rise to crime. CPSD uses programs and services already available in the community that provide support in the areas of education, social housing, health, and social services.

The family is the fundamental social unit in Canadian society, and recognizing this, most CPSD initiatives focus on the family rather than the individual. Mediation and counseling for families under stress, subsidies for food, clothing, childcare, transportation, and child development programs may be included in a CPSD initiative targeted at those at high risk for offending. CPSD programs are easily accessed by clients and are coordinated with other crime prevention programs.