Prácticas y cambio social

In the early 1900s, there was growing concern about the street youth that populated urban Canadian areas. During the 1800s and early 1900s, there was a considerable amount of immigration to Canada as Canadian officials sought European and Chinese immigrants to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway, populate Western Canada, and to work as servants for the Canadian elite. Entire families immigrated, with many adults dying en route to Canada across the Atlantic Ocean (Reid, 2012). Those travelling to Canada were promised better lives; however, when they arrived they faced considerable hardship (Des Dixon, 1994). Every family member, including very young children, had to work long hours just to make ends meet. In this manner, immigration, combined with urbanization and industrialization, led to the expansion of the urban poor (Reid, 2012). Also, due to parental loss, and the need for all family members to work to support a family, many children were left to fend for themselves in urban centers if they were unable to acquire employment. Children who were unable to secure a position in various Canadian industries roamed the streets of urban centers, shining shoes, foraging for fuel, or

engaging in a variety of other activities. It was perhaps inevitable that these youth would begin engaging in behaviours that members of the middle and upper class viewed as delinquent or criminal (Bell, 2012, 2015), especially in light of the significant change in middle-class ideologies concerning children, the family, and childrearing that occurred during this era (Des Dixon, 1994; Ryan, 1981).

Child labour was common not only in Canada, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but also in the United States and Europe. Indeed from at least the Middle Ages through the early modern period, children were essentially viewed as ‘miniature adults’, and were expected to complete their fair share of work within the household as early as five and seven years old (Reid, 2012). In fact, early settlers believed that work was to be a normal part of a child’s life: hard work, prayer, study and discipline (Siegel & Welsh, 2010). As such, it was not rare to have children working 10 to 14 hours daily during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Many believed that working-class children (and women) were better able to operate simple machinery in factories, thus leaving adult men to carry out more ‘difficult’ duties (McIntosh, 1999). Children living on farms were not

exempt from hard work and labour; they were expected to undertake onerous tasks alongside the adults (Siegel & Welsh, 2010). Not only were young people believed to be well equipped for hard labour, it was a familial expectation and obligation.

By the mid-nineteenth century, childhood came to be defined as a separate phase of life, prior to adulthood, characterized by middle-class notions of childhood innocence and dependence. Children were expected to be subservient to the male patriarch and to be protected and nurtured (Siegel & Welsh, 2010). Children were no longer simply viewed as little adults. Child rearing came to be viewed as a moral responsibility and something that required care and attention; middle-class people in this era believed that children could not be left to their own devices. Children running around the city unattended would get into trouble, as the result of ‘parental neglect.’ So-called ‘child savers’ began to speak out against what they labeled the ‘mistreatment’ and ‘neglect’ of minors by working-class parents. As a result, ‘juvenile delinquency’ was defined as a social problem in this era, with the term being used to identify lower class and immigrant children without parental supervision, as well as those children involved in criminal behaviour (Trépanier, 1999a). Juvenile delinquency encompassed not only young people in trouble with the law, but also behaviour believed to be negative or immoral that ran counter to the values and morals of middle and upper-class citizens, such as intoxication and panhandling (Sangster, 2002).

Growing concern with working-class and immigrant lifestyles and their impact on the morality of children and youth led to two middle-class movements that shaped the definition and treatment of youth delinquency. First, in the late 1800s, Children’s Aid Societies and other child protective agencies were created and they began to acquire authority over children believed to be victims of parental neglect. Second, a group of middle class reformers and upper-class women, at the time called the ‘Child Savers,’ emerged. They believed that youth who engaged in delinquent behaviour were primarily disadvantaged, and were not necessarily the hardened criminals evidenced in the adult population. For members of both groups, youthful indiscretions were largely the result of inopportune situations, a lack of proper guidance, the effects of drunkenness in the family, and genetics. Prevailing theories at the time also purported that criminal activity

was not solely the product of free will, as those within the Classical School and liberal ideologies previously believed, but rather arose out of situations that young people could not control (Trépanier, 1999b). Thus, these reformers believed that wayward youth needed proper guidance rather than the harsh punishment of adult institutions.

According to Sangster (2002), the goal of these early reformers was to instil discipline, morality and a hearty work ethic in poor and working class children. Since they believed working-class parents were not providing this kind of guidance and instruction, an effective criminal justice system should intervene. They fought to separate young delinquents from the hardened criminal influences of adult offenders, and place them within institutions especially equipped to deal with young people. The belief at the time was that young people were more malleable than adults when it came to delinquent behaviour and that if the state could act in a parental role, under a welfare model, then young people could be reformed into useful and productive citizens (Reid, 2012; Schissel, 2006).

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the undertakings of these agencies and reformers were purely altruistic in nature. While there was concern about the welfare of lower class and immigrant children in Canada, anxiety ultimately stemmed from the perceived threat to the societal order with the entrance of ‘dangerous classes’ into the urban milieu during the industrial period. Ultimately, the children protection agencies, in addition to upper class reformers, merely identified a broader societal concern with the potential threat that these ‘dangerous classes’ of young people posed to Canadian values. These groups successfully lobbied for a legislative solution, and the first piece of youth justice legislation, the Juvenile Delinquents Act (JDA), was drafted and passed in 1908 (Schissel, 2008).

Rather than placing young people in the criminal confines reserved for adult offenders, the Juvenile Delinquents Act (JDA) of 1908 placed children in reformatories. As suggested by the word itself, reformatories were designed with the assumption that reform or positive change was possible for problematic youth. Essentially, the JDA operated under the assumption that young people were morally pliable, and they could be

reformed to adopt middle and upper class norms. While this ‘gentler’ treatment of youth might seem ideal, the focus on morality meant that poor and working class girls and boys were subject to judicial reformation for non-criminal behaviours called ‘status offences’ (Faith, 2011). Status offences included acts such as truancy from school, running away from home and promiscuity – behaviours that violated middle-class social norms. The JDA dealt with problematic behaviours of those aged 7 to 18 years old. During this time, the age that a young person was transferred to the adult justice system varied across the country with some as young as 14 being treated as adults in some provinces, while others as old as 18 were treated as juveniles in the province of Quebec (Doob & Cesaroni, 2004; Trépanier, 1999a, 1999b, 2004). These variations create problems for researchers attempting to trace historical trends since current youth legislation only captures the misdeeds of those aged 12 to 17. Additionally, rather than being cited with a particular criminal charge, youth treated under the JDA were charged as ‘juvenile

delinquents’ (Doob & Cesaroni, 2004). This meant that the state maintained guardianship and control over the young person until it was felt by justice authorities that the young person was no longer a delinquent (until the age of 21). The purpose of indeterminate sentences for youth was so that the young person could be treated for as long as it took to get the individual to abandon their delinquent ways.