April 2019
Volume 61, No. 2 | Go to abstracts
Articles
Page 1
Patterns of Change in Dynamic Risk Factors over Time in Youth Offenders
Maggie Clarke, Michele Peterson-Badali, Tracey Skilling
Page 26
La construction du cadre normatif de l’emprisonnement avec sursis : analyse de la réforme politique de la loi C-9 au Canada
Elsa Euvrard, Chloé Leclerc
Page 46
The Concentration of Crime at Place in Montreal and Toronto
Rémi Boivin, Silas Nogueira de Melo
Page 66
Remand as a Cross-Institutional System: Examining the Process of Punishment before Conviction
Holly Pelvin
Abstracts
Patterns of Change in Dynamic Risk Factors over Time in Youth Offenders
Maggie Clarke, Michele Peterson-Badali, Tracey Skilling
Risk assessments that include dynamic risk factors are increasingly being utilized within the youth justice system to predict a young person’s likelihood to reoffend, to assist with case management, and to better inform intervention services. However, most studies to date have relied solely on single-wave cross-sectional research designs that essentially treat dynamic risk factors as static. Thus, it is unclear whether and how putative dynamic risk factors change over time, a question that has significant implications for assessment and case management policy and practice. Using a widely used and validated risk assessment and case management instrument (the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory), the purpose of the present study was to examine whether the dynamic risk factors outlined in the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model do in fact change over time and, if so, to investigate the effect of youth-specific predictors on these changes. Two hundred youth offenders were tracked from their first risk assessment conducted at probation to their transition out of the youth justice system. Results from generalized linear mixed modelling (GLMM) and latent class growth modelling (LCGM) analyses indicated that most dynamic risk domain scores increased over time, but that there was significant individual variation among youth at initial status and in the rate of change. Even when controlling for youth-specific factors, youth who were lower risk at the time of initial assessment increased in risk at a greater rate than higher-risk youth. Results have implications for the RNR framework, for improving the accuracy of risk assessments, and for informing treatment implementation.
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La construction du cadre normatif de l’emprisonnement avec sursis : analyse de la réforme politique de la loi C-9 au Canada
Elsa Euvrard, Chloé Leclerc
Conditional sentence was created in 1996 in Canada, in order to limit the use of imprisonment and develop alternative sentences. The offender serves his sentence in the community, and has to respect conditions imposed by the judge, based on his profile. Taking a punitive turn, the Canadian government passed two bills in 2007 and in 2012, called C-9 and C-10, which made conditional sentences harsher. Despite the disagreement of criminal justice professionals, politicians often imply that community custody is too lenient, unacceptable for certain categories of crimes. The aim of this article is to understand how the normative frame of the conditional sentence was built. An analysis of political speeches that preceded the adoption of bill C-9 shows that a lot of actors with opposing interest are involved in the legal process. These actors are organized into four profiles (pragmatic, community, populist and judicial), based from their shared representations and values. In the end, the law that was passed did not result from a consensus, but was created after compromises were made between the groups.
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The Concentration of Crime at Place in Montreal and Toronto
Rémi Boivin, Silas Nogueira de Melo
The identification of hot spots of crime – areas of high crime intensity – is of primary importance for crime prevention strategies. While the notion of crime hot spots is well accepted in Anglo-Saxon criminology, its empirical foundation is largely drawn from U.S. studies, and comparatively little literature is available for other countries, including Canada. Taking advantage of their respective “open data” initiatives, this study compares the spatial pattern of the two largest Canadian cities, Montreal and Toronto. The authors also review and empirically explore five propositions from the existing literature: (1) that a small proportion of places account for a large proportion of recorded criminal incidents; (2) that crime concentration is inversely correlated with the size of geographic units; (3) that crime concentration drastically varies whether all places or only places where at least one crime occurred are considered; (4) that different hot spots are identified at particular times of the day; and (5) that hot spots of different crime types do not overlap much. Both Toronto and Montreal appear to be very similar in terms of crime concentrations and hot spots. Additionally, this study provides preliminary support for the idea that findings from other countries can be generalized to the Canadian context.
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Remand as a Cross-Institutional System: Examining the Process of Punishment before Conviction
Holly Pelvin
Currently in Canada, there are more legally innocent people in custody in provincial/territorial prisons than there are sentenced prisoners. This group, known as remand prisoners, constituted 37% of the total prison population – federal and provincial/territorial – in Canada in 2015. Despite growing public attention and legal awareness of the remand problem, little is known about the human costs of pre-trial detention. I outline some of these costs to individuals through a discussion of three distinctive dimensions of remand imprisonment: arrest, court appearances, and daily life in custody. Based on interviews with 120 remand prisoners (60 male, 60 female) at four maximum-security provincial prisons in Ontario, I demonstrate that the system imposes many punishments on individuals long before – and often in the absence of – conviction. The consequences of remand custody have implications for our understanding of the nature of punishment before conviction and for contemporary legal debates in Canada on the issue of pre-trial credit.