Recidivism In Canada

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Youth crime in Canada has decreased overall but that does not mean crime has disappeared as there are cases where youths. Studies have shown that the “typical” method of justice, through incarceration has not made a huge impact on juvenile offenders ( S.M. Tarolla et al. 127). Which makes this topic so important because if young offenders are not given the right help and treatment they could continue onto the adult criminal justice system. Furthermore, if there is a way to identify recidivism, and provide help for young offenders then we would be adhering to the goals of the criminal justice system which is to rehabilitate and put people back into society as productive peoples. Moreover, this begs to question, what causes recidivism in young …show more content…

They also wanted to emphasize on the “risk and protective factors” that led to recidivism. They were able to test their research by using 43 male offenders and 33 female offenders between the ages of 11-17 (Carr & Vandiver 2001). The youths group of friend’s, history of offence, their IQ, their family situation and role models were also some of the factors they tested when looking for recidivism. Furthermore, each person was given a form that tested for stressors, risk and protective factors. To test the stressors, they looked at two specific stressors, which was low SES scores and if there was separation with the family. For the risk factors, to measure it they looked at a youth’s personal characteristic, familial conditions, drug use, peer selection, school attendance and school difficulties. They measured the risk factors from zero being a low risk and 23 being a high risk. Next to measure protective factors they looked at “personal characteristics, familial conditions, positive role models, peer selection, school interests, and activities and hobbies” (Carr & Vandiver 2001 415). With the measure of protective factors ranging from 0, being low protection and 23 being high …show more content…

They tested this using both female and males using 100 males and 100 females. Within each group half of them were recidivists and the other half were non-recidivist. The age range of each sample being 11-18 year olds. To test their study, they used 34 variables and classified them into two groups, which was the youth’s family background which included SES scores, if their parents were married and if they had any contact with the law before. Secondly, the “S” variable included their mental state, when the child was first institutionalized, the age of when they started presenting anti-social behavior and if there was any presence of reckless behavior before they were in the criminal justice