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Review Essay: Change, Continuity, and Public Opinion in Youth Justice

The overall objective of this essay is to discuss the history of and recent changes in the Canadian youth justice system and attempt to place them in a broader international context. In particular, the essay examines Doob and Sprott’s observation in their contribution to Tonry and Doob’s volume that, in drafting the Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2002 (the YCJA), “the [Canadian] government attempted to do the impossible: be sensible but seem tough” (p. 225). Three of the publications reviewed here–Doob and Cesaroni, Campbell’s edited collection, and the special edition of the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice–focus on the Canadian youth justice system at and immediately after the implementation of the YCJA in April 2003. It is not my intention to review them at length but to summarize their approaches to the YCJA and its predecessors. They have much in common: they are broadly welcoming of the new legislation and accept that its overarching aims are to divert young offenders away from formal criminal justice procedures and restrict the use of custody to those convicted of serious violence. The fourth volume reviewed, Tonry and Doob’s edited book in the University of Chicago’s annual series Crime and Justice: A Review of Research reflects the growing interest in this area identified by Muncie (2006): “Comparative youth justice is notably underdeveloped, but interest in this area is growing” (p. 42). It includes descriptions of youth justice systems in a number of Western countries (including Canada) as well as chapters dealing specifically with the roles of public opinion and restorative justice. In their more recent edited collection, Muncie and Goldson (2006a) cover a slightly different range of countries and include Japan; they also adopt a more avowedly critical stance, epitomized by Smandych (2006, p. 19) who