The Supreme Court of Canada\u2019s (SCC) consideration of when youth should be sentenced as adults is likely to have implications that extend beyond the country\u2019s borders, says a Brock University expert.<\/p>\n
This week, the SCC heard arguments about the issue of adult sentencing for young people charged with violent offences under the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA).<\/p>\n
Professor Voula Marinos in Brock\u2019s Departments of Child and Youth Studies and Forensic Psychology and Criminal Justice says the case will prove important \u2014 perhaps not only for Canadians.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanada\u2019s youth justice system is premised on our values that young people are different than adults in terms of their level of criminal responsibility,\u201d she says. \u201cThe notion that we think about criminal responsibility of young people differently than criminal responsibility of adults has led us to creating a very robust youth criminal justice system that is actually internationally renowned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marinos believes other countries may be looking to Canada as a verdict is rendered, taking that direction into consideration for their own judicial systems.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe decision may be viewed by other countries as a possible model of how to operationalize reduced moral blameworthiness of young people at sentencing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The Canadian system recognizes that young people are vulnerable, still in the\u00a0process of development, and of reduced maturity, she says.<\/p>\n \u201cYoung people are also considered to have more potential to learn and change compared to adults,\u201d she says. \u201cThe YCJA aims to protect the public by holding young people accountable for their offences, fairly\u00a0and proportionately, with options for rehabilitation and reintegration through supportive programs in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n Adult sentences for young people are not automatically considered. Since 2008, the responsibility for proving that a youth should be sentenced as an adult has fallen to the Crown.<\/p>\n The current appeal to the SCC centres on I.M. and S.B. \u2014 two young people who were convicted of violent offences and cannot be identified under Canadian law \u2014 and whether or not the Crown proved that adult sentencing was appropriate despite their age when the crimes were committed.<\/p>\n Marinos says in any attempt to secure adult sentencing, the Crown must prove the court should not presume the youth has diminished moral blameworthiness and also that a youth sentence would not be of sufficient length to hold the young person accountable for the offence in question.<\/p>\n \u201cThe lawyers for I.M. and S. B. argue that rebutting the presumption of diminished moral blameworthiness is a high bar,\u201d she says. \u201cThey say the Crown should present expert evidence in rebutting the presumption and that criteria need to be consistently applied by judges in adult-sentence cases across jurisdictions and provinces.\u201d<\/p>\n When it comes to violent crimes, Canadians are largely supportive of adult sentencing, Marinos says. She points to a recent national survey of the Canadian public that found \u201cabout two-thirds of respondents support adult sentences for youth found guilty of murder and for repeat violent offenders.\u201d<\/p>\n Marinos says it\u2019s important to remember why the criminal justice system distinguishes young people from adults in the first place.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is important to understand that diminished moral blameworthiness is a constitutional right of young people and part of Canada\u2019s obligations as part of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,\u201d says Marinos. \u201cOpening the gate to treating young people as adults is not automatic, and this decision by the SCC will hopefully provide more clarity for the courts to do so only when necessary and with consistency.\u201d<\/p>\n Most important to remember, according to Marinos, is that the goal of sentencing is to balance the nature of an offence with an individual\u2019s circumstances.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are many\u00a0sentences available under the YCJA that can hold young people accountable for their offences,\u201d she says. \u201cWith more resources and investment in community-based sentences and addressing the roots of violence, there may be more rehabilitative options to address the complex needs of youth who commit the most violent crimes and less reliance on adult sentences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Supreme Court of Canada\u2019s (SCC) consideration of when youth should be sentenced as adults is likely to have implications that extend beyond the country\u2019s borders, says a Brock University expert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":96560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3319,1,5,38],"tags":[45,522,11111,13923,6611],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96558"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96564,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96558\/revisions\/96564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}