Sociedad de la información y del conocimiento

Some scholars, journalists and Conservative politicians argue that that violence among young people is something to be concerned about (“9 key elements of the crime bill A guide to the federal government’s Safe Streets and Community Act,” 2011,

“Backgrounder: Safe Streets & Communities Act: Protecting Society from Violent and Repeat Young Offenders,” 2011; Artz & Nicholson, 2002; Artz, 1998; Branch, 2015; Cohen, 1972, 2002; Kong & AuCoin, 2008; Moretti, Catchpole, & Odgers, 2005; Narine, 2013; Savoie, 2000). However, as we saw in chapter two, long-term crime and court data trends show no overarching increase in youth crime. Similarly, several Canadian scholars have identified a lessening of youth crime more generally since the introduction of the YCJA (Bala, Carrington, & Roberts, 2009; Bell, 2012; Doob & Cesaroni, 2004). For many, however, the real concern is about trends in girls’ rates of crime. As noted, media reports indicate girls have ‘gone violent.’ Some academics agree.

For instance, Artz (1998) argued that in the late 1990s there was little doubt among British Columbia-based educators and school administrators that girls were participating in violent crime at “alarming” rates4_{. She suggested that this trend of schoolgirl violence} had surfaced in British Columbia, Ontario and throughout the United States. Artz (1998) supported her claims by citing provincial crime statistics showing that the number of girls charged with assault grew by 250% between 1986 and 1993 (p. 78). Her conclusions were based on interviews she completed with six girls between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. She found that the girls committing violent crime felt that their victims deserved violent attacks because they threatened relationships with adolescent boys.

A more recent overview published by the Public Health Agency of Canada similarly concludes that it is a myth that boys are more violent than girls, citing Justice Statistics to argue that in reality, more girls than ever before are being charged with violent crime and that their rates have actually tripled since the late 1980s and early 1990s (Artz &

4_{Artz’s (1998) qualitative study on aggressive girls included interviews with only 6 aggressive girls;}

further research with larger sample sizes to confirm the results are representative of larger populations of girls is needed.

Nicholson, 2002). In a similar vein, Moretti, Catchpole, & Odgers (2005) use statistics provided by Savoie (2000) and Statistics Canada to show that the crime rates among Canadian girls have surged more than 127% between 1988 and 1998. Boys’ rates, on the other hand, only increased 65% over the same period. Using these same statistics Moretti et al. (2005) contend that although boys’ violence remains more serious, girls reach their violent peaks earlier than boys. Kong & AuCoin (2008) also suggest that while female youths take part in significantly less violent crime than boys, they peak at age fifteen while boys peak at age seventeen. Moretti et al. (2005) further argue that violent crime rates among boys have actually decreased slightly while girls’ rates have shown modest growth (Moretti et al., 2005, p.22). Updated research from Moretti and her colleagues (2015) suggests that there have been increases since the 1980s in rates of youth violence, including violence and aggression among girls, but the rates have leveled off in recent years.

Not all authors agree that violence among girls is on the rise. Executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS), Kim Pate (1999), alongside American scholars Chesney-Lind and Irwin (2008) contend that there have been no significant changes in the levels and patterns of girls’ aggression and violence in Canada. In the late 1990s, Pate (1999) explained that oftentimes drastic increases in statistical rates of girls’ violent crimes can be explained by the fact that historically there have been so few female offenders to begin with. For instance, if there were previously zero girls charged with robbery and over the past ten years there were two, it could be said that there was a 200% increase, making the surge seem much larger than it is (Pate, 1999, p.39). Pate (1999) also suggested that Statistics Canada data reveal that there was an overall reduction in youth crime at the end of the twentieth century and that generally speaking there was a low incidence of violent crime and recidivism by young offenders. Similarly, according to Youth Court Statistics from the 1990s, charges for murder and attempted murder by girls in Canada have also remained stable and have not increased (Reitsma-Street, 1999). According to Pate (1999), Statistics Canada data showed that overall the crime rate among youths is decreasing and that violence and repeat offending especially has remained relatively low throughout the 1990s (p. 40). To support such a claim, Schramm (1998) reveals that over the past 30 years, serious violent offences

committed by young women have gone down and that, of those women charged, 88% were charged with non-sexual simple assault. Doob and Sprott (1998) reiterate these sentiments by using data from the Youth Court Survey (YCS) to claim that the rate at which girls were charged remained stable and relatively low between 1991/92 and

1995/96. They also suggest that more serious forms of violent crime are more likely to be committed by male rather than female youth (Doob & Sprott, 1998).

Some scholars identify an upward trend in female youth crime in Canada, but hold that the increases are the result of a multitude of political and legislative factors. Between the 1980s and early 1990s, there was an increase in youth crime according to Reitsma-Street (1999). While she is not disputing the statistics, she does claim that this increase can be explained by various factors. The introduction of the Young Offenders Act in 1984 changed the upper age limit that defined youth in the justice system and also altered how Canada defined youth crime. Other reasons why crime rates increased during the 1990s, according to Reitsma-Street (1999), were that the overall number of youth in North America increased and that school administration, police and prosecutors altered the ways in which youth crime was typically handled. She explains that in the early 1980s, for every ten youths charged with a crime, one was female; twenty years later this gap had narrowed to one in every five being female. With the introduction of administrative offences (for example, breach of probation), girls began to rack up more charges. In 1986, 6.1% of the charges against Canadian girls were for administrative offences and this percentage rose steadily to 33.8% in the year 2000. While administrative charges have also been laid against boys, the percentages have not spiked so sharply (Reitsma- Street, 1999).

More recently, scholars have suggested that while the image of violent girls wreaking havoc on society may be a prominent vision within media portrayals, the reality could not be further from the truth (Chesney-Lind & Irwin, 2008; DeKeserdy, 2010; Sprott & Doob, 2009). American scholars Chesney-Lind & Irwin (2008) explain that news media has a tendency to highlight shocking cases of girls’ violence in Canada, but that these incidents occur very rarely among girls. In comparison to male youth, self-reported data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) in 2003 showed

that for Canadian youth aged twelve to fifteen, girls report lower levels of property crime and violent crime than do boys. Likewise, the survey showed that amongst this age group, female youth reported less serious forms of violent crime than male youth (Fitzgerald, 2003). Similarly, Canadian scholars Sprott & Doob (2009) recently stated that in both Canada and the United States (as well as in other countries), girls are still less likely to appear in youth courts, and more likely to be involved in less serious types of criminality. The authors explain that if one were to look solely at court data, it would appear as though violent crime among girls has increased between the 1980s and the late 2000s; however the self-reported data they analyzed shows a decline.

Overall, the literature on youth crime, and especially girls’ crime, has provided contradictory evidence, and few studies have documented trends into the twenty-first century. To address this gap in the literature this paper explores answers to three research questions. First, are youth becoming more violent in Canada? Second, how do youth crime rates change over time, and what is the impact of the YJCA on youth crime? Third, how do youth court conviction rates vary by gender? To do this, youth court convictions data (on guilty court findings) are analyzed for female and male youth in Canada between 1991/92 and 2011/12.