Post 282
600 words, 3 minutes to read
Audio summary courtesy of volunteer Jada Lam
Post by Felicia De Sousa , Ph D Student
Summary: Evidence shows that police discretion whether to charge youth is applied unevenly by police, with racialized youth being charged more often, even though the results of diversion appear to be better.
Even though there’s clear evidence that youth diversion outcomes vary by race, this issue is often ignored in Canada. Contact with the justice system can have long-lasting social, economic, and systemic impacts, particularly on young people. Research shows that early involvement with the criminal justice system (CJS) increases the likelihood of later adult justice contact, feeding into the revolving door effect of the justice system. A single arrest can disrupt education, limit job opportunities, and expose youth to antisocial environments.
Youth Diversion
Formal justice processing should be used as a last resort for youth and instead, we should prioritize diversion whenever possible. Canada emphasized diversion and cautionary approaches after the Young Offenders Act was replaced with the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA). Since then, policymakers have embraced a decarceration approach: youth imprisonment dropped from 17.64 to 3.79 per 10,000 since 2000, and youth crime rates have dropped about 20% since 2009.
Diversionary, community-based programs, also called extra-judicial measures (EJM), aim to rehabilitate rather than punish youth and reduce their risk of reoffending. These programs provide verbal warnings, cautions, community programs, and extra-judicial sanctions carried out outside the courts. They foster fairness, engagement, and community connection.
Police discretion is key in this process because officers decide who gets a caution or is diverted versus who is formally charged. Many factors influence these decisions, and because discretion is the main driver, concerns about selection bias naturally arise.
Race and police discretion
Canada often receives international praise for its multiculturalism and anti-racism, but the reality is more complex. Persistent racial inequities are downplayed or ignored and are allowed to continue under the guise of equity. Research consistently finds that even after accounting for offence severity, police divert Black and racialized youth less often and charge them formally more frequently than White youth.
In Ontario, research by Kanika Samuels-Wortley confirms this pattern. While police formally process fewer youth overall, they still disproportionately charge Black and racialized youth. Race modestly but significantly influences arrest decisions. Among youth caught with cannabis, which is the most common youth charge, police charge Black males more often and give them cautions less often. Specifically, 54.5% of all youth received a caution, compared with only 49.1% of Black youth. Meanwhile, Black youth (19.2%) were slightly more likely to face formal charges than White youth (16.0%).
Even though the differences might seem small, they matter in the Canadian context. They highlight the significance of race-based disparities in a country that historically limits the collection of race-based data, reflecting a broader “race-absent” approach in policy and practice. These findings suggest that selection bias influences which youth police caution. They also show that personal characteristics affect police discretion, which warrants further study. Excessive discretion can create inconsistencies in the diversion process, perpetuate inequalities, and undermine the YCJA’s goals of fairness and rehabilitation.
Diversion has better results than criminal charges
Research from the United States shows that diversion generally produces better outcomes than formal sanctions. Canadian studies support this trend as well, but researchers need more longitudinal studies to track the long-term effectiveness of diversion programs in reducing recidivism. Future studies should also examine the relationship between youth status and race in the context of EJM. In particular, qualitative research on how police decide whether to divert or charge youth could provide valuable insights into the disparities described above.
About this blog: The John Howard Canada blog is intended to support greater public understanding of criminal justice issues. Blog content does not necessarily represent the views of the John Howard Society of Canada. All blog material may be reproduced freely for any non-profit purpose as long as the source is acknowledged. We welcome comments (moderated). Contact: blogeditor@johnhoward.ca.
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