…… police now won’t even lay a charge

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There’s and old adage in economics: If you want more of something, subsidize
it; if you want less, tax it. The same could also be said slightly differently in
sociology: If you want more of a certain behaviour, reward it; if you want less,
punish it.

There are complicating factors in both disciplines, but as general rules, both adages
hold true.

So it should be no wonder that the one area of crime in Canada that is surging ahead
of the others is youth crime. After all, first with the Young Offenders Act and
now with the Youth Criminal Justice Act, young criminals are seldom punished harshly,
or even at all.

Last month, Statistics Canada produced a study on guns and crime in Canada from
1996 through 2006.

It contained plenty of bad news for cheerleaders of our current gun registry: Gun
crime has not fallen appreciably in the decade since the registry began, meaning
the more than $1 billion spent has been entirely useless.

Moreover, while the registry was designed primarily to track the ownership of long
guns — rifles and shotguns — StatsCan reported, “handguns made up nearly
two-thirds of all firearms used” in crimes in Canada. The use of long guns
in crime has been on the decline for three decades, long before the gun registry
began.

But one standout was the prevalence of gun crime among youths.

According to the national data collectors, “among young people, the use of
guns in violent crime is increasing.”

Since 2002, it is up by a third.

And, while most violent crime (adult or youth) involves no weapon other than a fist,
it is still nearly 50 per cent more common for a young criminal to use a gun than
an adult criminal.

This is consistent with other figures released by StatsCan last October that showed
that while Canada’s overall murder rate continues to fall — it was off 10 per
cent in 2006 — murders by teens aged 12 to 17 are spiking.

Indeed, “the rate of youth aged 12 to 17 accused of homicide was at its highest
point since 1961.”

Ditto a StatsCan survey released last July that showed crime overall in Canada –
non-violent, as well as violent — had fallen almost a third since 1990; except
for youth crime. Crimes by young offenders have been on the rise since the early
part of this decade.

None of this should come as a shock, however, since the same July 2007 StatsCan
report that showed youth crime bucking the national crime trend also contained this
gem: “Even though more youth came into contact with the police in 2006, fewer
were charged with crimes.”

The Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), passed by the federal Liberal government
in 2002 as a replacement for the unpopular Young Offenders Act turns out to be even
more lenient than the old YOA. (Who would have guessed that was possible?)

Since the vast majority of crimes committed by young people are minor assaults,
shoplifting, break-and-enter and failure to appear — crimes the Liberals judged
were largely trivial — the YCJA directs police and prosecutors to take “extrajudicial
measures” where possible. Police and prosecutors are instructed to keep young
suspects out of the justice system — not even charging them with a crime, in many
cases — shepherding them instead to rehabilitation programs.

This has led to an astonishing reduction in the number of young offenders who are
incarcerated, even from the low levels under the old YOA. Again according to StatsCan,
the number of 12- to 17-year-olds in detention or on probation has fallen by well
over a third since the YCJA came into effect in Apr. 2003.

Young people aren’t stupid. And if they are gang members, their gang leaders
aren’t stupid either.

They see that for most of the crimes they do, the worst that happens to them is
that they must accompany a social worker to their victim’s house and apologize
and make some insignificant restitution.

Big deal.

It used to be said our justice system had become so lenient and porous that most
young offenders were back on the street before you knew it. Now, most of them are
never off the street.

It’s no wonder Toronto police reported this week that while 12- to 17-year-olds
make up a small percentage of their city’s population, they are responsible
for 47 per cent of the robberies there and 20 per cent of the break-and-enters.

Each year nearly 200,000 young offenders are accused of crimes (although an increasing
number are never charged.)

Nearly one in five young people — 18.2 per cent — has an encounter with the law
during their teenage years. That’s nearly double the adult rate, and over a
much briefer period — 10 years, rather than an entire adult lifespan.

And it’s particularly bad among boys: Almost one-third of young males (30 per
cent) have at least one brush with the law.

Canadians are less likely than 15 years ago to have their homes burgled, their cars
stolen or the shops robbed — except by young people.

Canada doesn’t have a crime problem, it has a youth crime problem.

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The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !