A skilled pianist, Ben Sterling  (BA ’22, MA ’26) originally planned to study music arrived at Brock as an undergraduate student in 2018.

After pivoting to study Sociology, Sterling graduated with a master’s last month during the University’s 119th Convocation.

Academics had not been Sterling’s focus in high school, where he says social identity often took priority over grades. By his own account, he engaged in underage drinking and other high-risk activities — experiences that would later shape his master’s research.

Sterling’s graduate research explored how “at-risk” labels and youth justice reforms may be expanding systems of surveillance and control rather than reducing harm.

While youth incarceration rates have declined across Canada and Ontario in recent years, a trend that could be seen as a sign of progress, Sterling argues that the numbers may tell only part of the story.

“There’s a downward trend in youth incarceration, and to most people that seems like the system is working,” he says. “But I argue that this shift is more of a distraction.”

Sterling examined what he describes as a move away from formal punishment toward models framed as care, risk assessment and treatment. He says these approaches can widen intervention to include young people who have not committed crimes and children under 12, below the minimum age governed by the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

“I think there’s immense potential in a lot of young people we label as at-risk,” Sterling says. “But once that label is applied, they can get caught in a net of surveillance and control that’s hard to escape.”

He believes his own his path might have been very different if he been formally labelled “at-risk” as a teenager.

“If I had been assigned that label and subjected to that level of intervention, I doubt I would have made it to the master’s level,” he says.

During his research, Sterling gained first-hand insight into the complex mental health needs and unstable home environments many youths face while working at an out-of-home care facility for teenage boys accused of sexual misconduct. The experience complicated his theoretical stances.

“You see how complex their needs are,” he says. “You want something better for them — but it’s not always clear what that looks like.”

Sterling credits much of his academic growth to the mentorship he found at Brock, particularly his supervisor, Professor of Sociology Tamari Kitossa, who encouraged him to develop his ideas and push his work further. Reflecting on his journey from music student to critical scholar, he hopes his story underscores that trajectories are not fixed.

“There are young people with bright futures who are just born into bad luck situations,” he says. “We need to be careful about the labels we assign — and the systems we build around them.”