Are Canadian Girls Becoming More Violent? An Examination of Integrated Criminal Court Survey Statistics

Abstract

Girls often find themselves at the center of a moral panic surrounding youth crime with claims that their behavior is out of control in national news media. While media often readily suggests that crime among girls is on the rise, there is little scholarly consensus. This article explores the Integrated Criminal Court Survey to analyze whether guilty findings among girls are rising, what can be said about girls’ involvement in crime and violence over the past few decades, and how legislation changes and ideological shifts have altered how youth in conflict with the law have been treated.

Keywords

criminal justice policy gender bias juvenile justice young offenders

Canadian news stories over the last decade have paid considerable attention to youth crime, with many arguing we need tougher criminal justice policies due to rising rates of youth crime. Particularly distressing is the attention paid to the supposed increase in crime among girls. A news editorial from the Globe and Mail titled “Girls Gone Violent” suggests that Canada must start paying closer attention to the problem of girls’ violence because it has recently increased by 25% and the “vicious” nature of the girls’ attacks is also increasing (“Girls Gone Violent,” 2007, p. A16). Similarly, a Toronto Star article suggests that society should be wary of girls’ increasing gang membership (Edwards, 2006, p. B02).

Within the scholarly literature, consensus has not been reached about whether or not youth crime among boys and girls is increasing in quantity and severity. While some writers contend youth crime has increased, especially for girls (Artz, 1998; Artz & Nicholson, 2002), others are more skeptical and provide evidence of a decline in crime among girls (Chesney-Lind & Irwin, 2008; Chesney-Lind, Morash, & Irwin, 2010; Doob & Sprott, 1998; Pate, 1999; Sprott & Doob, 2009). However, many of these latter studies were published almost a decade ago, and many look at rates before the passing of the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) in 2003, which altered approaches to youth crime. This article updates and extends this literature by examining trends in youth crime, for both boys and girls separately between 1991 and 2012, to determine whether the overall trends of violent crime convictions are increasing and what impact the introduction of the YJCA has had on youth crime convictions. Finally, I examine the ways statistics can be misused, misunderstood, and misconstrued to support various interpretations of youth crime in Canada.

Youth Crime Trends

Some scholars, journalists, and conservative politicians argue that that violence among young people is something to be concerned about (Artz, 1998; Artz & Nicholson, 2002; “Backgrounder: Safe Streets & Communities Act: Protecting Society from Violent and Repeat Young Offenders,” 2011; Branch, 2015; Cohen, 1972, 2002; Kong & AuCoin, 2008; Moretti, Catchpole, & Odgers, 2005; Narine, 2013; “9 Key Elements of the Crime Bill,” 2011; Savoie, 2000). However, 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” rates.¹ She suggested that this trend of schoolgirl violence had surfaced in British Columbia, Ontario, and throughout the United States.

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 & Nicholson, 2002). In a similar vein, Moretti et al. (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. contend that although boys’ violence remains more serious, girls reach their violent peaks earlier than boys. Kong and 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). Updated research from Moretti and her colleagues (2005) 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 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 10 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). 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, 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. 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 nonsexual 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 quite low between 1991/1992 and 1995/1996. 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 (YOA) 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, 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 10 youths charged with a crime, one was female; 20 years later this gap had narrowed to one in every five being female. With the introduction of administrative offences (e.g., 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). Similarly, American scholars have said that while the gender gap in offending may be reducing, it is largely because boys are committing fewer crimes and changes in justice policies that have led to higher rates of charges among girls (Jones, Brown, Wanamaker, & Greiner, 2014; Stevens, Morash, & Chesney-Lind, 2011).

Some 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 and 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 12 to 15, girls report lower levels of property crime and violent crime than do boys. Likewise, the survey showed that among this age group, female youth reported less serious forms of violent crime than male youth (Fitzgerald, 2003). Similarly, Canadian scholars Sprott and Doob (2009) recently stated that in both Canada and the United States, girls are still less likely to appear in youth courts, and more likely to be involved in less serious types of crime. They 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 21st century. To address this gap in the literature, this article explores answers to three research questions.

Research Question 1: Are youth becoming more violent in Canada?

Research Question 2: How do youth crime rates change over time, and what is the impact of the YJCA on youth crime?

Research Question 3: 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 1991/1992 and 2011/2012.

Method

To answer these questions, official governmental court statistics on crime and court findings are analyzed. Statistics Canada’s Integrated Criminal Court Survey (ICCS) provides data on court trends between 1991/1992 and 2011/2012. The ICCS data will be compared with the Crime Severity Index (CSI) to gain a sense of whether or not the violent crimes recorded in youth court are becoming more serious in nature. The CSI tracks the severity of crime over time, while the ICCS provides data on the numbers of youth appearing in youth courts.

The ICCS

The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS) collects the ICCS data in conjunction with governmental departments responsible for criminal courts. Information from court dockets are forwarded to the CCJS for collation and calculation of statistics for the use of academics, analysts, justice authorities, media, and others (Statistics Canada, 2014).

The ICCS is intended to be a census, with a cross-sectional design, of both pending and completed federal statute charges that are heard in provincial/territorial and Canadian superior courts (Statistics Canada, 2014). The goal of the survey (as part of the Courts Program) is to disseminate information on the Canadian court systems, including court appearances, charges, and cases in criminal courts, as they apply to both youth and adults. Aggregate data recorded include the “age and sex of the accused, case decisions, sentencing information regarding the length of prison and probation, and amount of fine, as well as case-processing indicators such as case elapsed time” (Statistics Canada, 2014). This aggregate data does not include individual case data.² Information on youth are available as of the year 1991/1992.

As my focus is on youth crime, the focus is only on those found guilty; focusing on charges would include youth who were found not guilty of committing a crime. While it is possible that young people can be found guilty of an offence when they are indeed innocent, a focus on guilty dispositions would appear to provide the most accurate measure of crime committed.

Youth was defined as those between the ages of 12 and 17 as this is the age range captured by the YOA and the YCJA. This categorization results in a slight underreporting of guilty violent offences in that there are a select few cases that likely were transferred to adult court. In 1996, the YOA was amended so that those aged 16 and older could be transferred to adult court in certain circumstances. Later, the YCJA amended this to the age of 14 (16 in Quebec) with some differences. Instead of being tried in adult court, a young person found guilty in youth court of an indictable offence could be sentenced as an adult while remaining in youth court. According to Hiebert (2010), this results in a possible underestimation of youth crime convictions for serious crimes, as the convictions of youth tried in adult court are not included in the data. The CCJS does not provide data on adult sentences under the YCJA (Statistics Canada, 2014).

Analysis of the ICCS

For the purposes of this article, the ICCS was analyzed to reveal trends between 1991/1992 and 2011/2012 in total youth court conviction rates. The raw court numbers were converted into rates per 100,000 by using census data on youth populations for each year of the study. Court data were chosen because governmental statistics on youth crime from the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) survey cannot be separated by sex, whereas the ICCS data can. The year 1991/1992 was chosen because this was the first year that youth court statistics are available. The 2011/2012 end year was chosen as it is the most recent set of statistics available on youth courts; not all cases have been processed and completed for more recent years. Because I am interested in exploring the impact of the YCJA, passed in 2003, on youth crime trends, I pay particular attention to trends before and after the passing of the act.

The ICCS contains data on the numbers of individuals found guilty of committing different crimes in Canada and separates the types of offences into various categories allowing a comparison of those crimes committed against persons, with those that are considered property, administration and traffic crimes. In this article, general crime rates refer to all offences committed by youth under federal statutes, excluding traffic offences.

Offence Categories in the ICCS

The category “crimes against persons” includes all violent offences gone to youth court in Canada. These violent crimes include the following: homicide, attempted murder, robbery, sexual assault, other sexual offences, weapons, major assault, minor assault, uttering threats, and criminal harassment. The category does not take into account the severity of the offence and also includes some crimes that are not typically characterized by physical violence but rather emotional or verbal aggression. The homicide category in the ICCS includes first and second-degree murder, manslaughter, and infanticide. The category of major assault in the ICCS refers to those most serious types of assault that young people can be charged with: Level 3/aggravated assault, Level 2/assault with a weapon, or assault against a police officer. The minor or common assault category includes the least serious forms of assault under the Criminal Code of Canada; these assaults are separated from more serious assaults in terms of the extent of physical injury.

The category of sexual assault in the ICCS includes sexual assaults that are both minor and major sexual violations of a person. This can include Level 1 sexual assault that usually has minor physical injuries, and sometimes the victim may not have physical injuries. Levels 2 and 3 can include weapons, threats, and bodily harm, maiming, disfiguring, and endangering the life of the victim. “Other sexual offences” typically includes violations against children or animals that are sexual in nature (i.e., sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, luring a child via a computer and sexual exploitation; Statistics Canada, 2015).

Weapons offences are those where individuals have unauthorized weapons, ammunition, or they are found guilty of carrying concealed weapons, pointing weapons, or carelessly storing their weapons. Under the Criminal Code of Canada, the offence of uttering threats includes threats against another’s life or threats concerning causing bodily harm. This offence can also include the threat of destruction of another’s property or killing of an individual’s animal. Criminal harassment is an interesting category within the “crimes against the person” category as it includes a variety of behaviors, most of which do not include physical violence or weapons. Specifically, the criminal harassment category includes repeatedly following another, repeatedly communicating with someone directly or indirectly, besetting or watching a location frequented by another, or engaging in threatening conduct. When it comes to young people, these behaviors are frequently part of schoolyard and cyber bullying.

“Property crimes” were also investigated in this research and the crimes of theft, break and enter, fraud, mischief, possession of stolen property and the category of “other property crimes” were examined. The component crimes (i.e., theft, break and enter . . .) were excluded from the results table as the primary focus of this article was violent crime. Each of these crime categories decreased over the time periods examined, and it was believed that using the overarching heading of “property crime” could capture the overall trend rather than describing each independently. Mischief is included in Table 2 and generally refers to situations where someone destroys property or obstructs, interferes, or interrupts the use of property. I included this category because news media frequently makes reference to youth being a nuisance or “up to no good.”

Administration of justice violations are crimes that occur when an individual fails to abide by sentences imposed by the courts or pretrial conditions (Boyce, 2013). According to the Statistics Canada (2015) website, administration of justice violations include failure to appear in court, breach of probation, being unlawfully at large, failing to comply with orders, and taking part in corruption and disobedience, misleading justice or committing perjury (Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 2015). Finally, the possession of drugs was included as a variable. The Controlled Drug and Substance Act explains that the offence of drug possession includes those who have knowledge and control of a prohibited substance.

ICCS and Canadian Youth Population Changes

To obtain a clearer picture of trends over time, in this analysis, ICCS statistics are standardized. Many news journalists and some criminologists have failed to identify population growth and reduction as factors shaping crime and court trends. Similarly, the ICCS does not take variations in the size of the youth population into consideration. An increase in absolute numbers of youth crime could simply reflect an increase in the number of youth in the population. For example, if one were to examine court convictions among young females between 1991/1992 and 2002/2003, it would appear as though convictions increased by 3%. The raw data show that there were 10,148 convictions in 1991/1991 and 10,461 in 2002/2003 among female young offenders. However, these numbers do not take into account that Canada’s population of female youths increased from 1,107,281 to 1,230,142 over this same period. When population growth is taken into consideration, and the rates of court convictions standardized per 100,000, the ICCS actually shows a 9% decrease.³ By standardizing ICCS statistics to account for population changes, this research overcomes methodological limitations of past research, following the lead of criminologists like Doob and Sprott (1998) and Reitsma-Street (1999). Youth population changes are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1.

Youth Population Changes in Canada.

	1991	2003	2010
Both sexes	2,276,854	2,555,573	2,483,937
Male	1,169,573	1,311,992	1,271,668
Female	1,107,281	1,243,581	1,212,269

Source. Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Census of Canada.

CSI

In addition to the ICCS, this study also draws on the CSI to obtain a more complete portrait of violent youth crime in Canada. The CSI allows the tracking of changes in the severity of police-reported crime between the years 1998 and 2009. The advantage of including both data sets is that I can then report on both the frequency and severity of crime. Claims that youth are more violent than in the past could be supported by evidence of increasing incidences of violent crime, or increased severity of crime. Unfortunately, CSI data are not available between the years of 1991 and 1997 and hence are not fully compatible with YCS statistics. According to Statistics Canada, the CSI both complements and addresses some of the limitations of using official crime statistics on their own by providing a new measure to understand trends in criminal activity.⁴

Results

First, the total crime convictions among youth between 1991/1992 and 2011/2012 for males and females was examined and for the total sample. Figure 1 shows an overall decrease in the rates of youth found guilty in youth courts over this period. Rates for boys decline fairly steadily over time, while the girls’ rates are flat initially before declining in 2002/2003. Next, I focus specifically on violent crime to see how the results change. Figure 2 shows that violent crime processed in youth court increased between 1991 and 1997 and remained relatively stable until 2003, which was when the YCJA was enacted. After 2003, violent cases processed in youth court dropped sharply for a year or two, and then remained relatively stable over the next several years, decreasing again from 2009/2010 to 2011/2012. Thus, the overall trend in violent crime is a decrease, although the decrease is more modest than for total crime (in Figure 1). As Figure 2 shows, the trends for boys and girls are virtually identical to the overall trends, dropping after 2003. In neither Figure 1 nor 2 is there evidence of an increase in youth guilty of criminal offences.

Figure 1.

Line graph of total crime convictions in the ICCS data between 1991/1992 and 2011/2012 split by sex.

Figure 2.

Line graph of violent crime convictions in the ICCS data between 1991/1992 and 2011/2012 split by sex.

Table 2 presents the number and percentage change per 100,000 of total offences convictions over time broken down by types of crime and sex. Figures 1 and 2 provide an overall snapshot of total crime and violent crime convictions; however, Table 2 allows for a more specific analysis of various types of crime. Under each type of crime, the raw numbers, or all unstandardized convictions for the particular types of crime, are included in brackets for both sexes. The first three columns show the number of offences per 100,000 at three points in time: 1991/1992, 2002/2003, and 2011/2012. By using 2002/2003, rather than 2003/2004, it is possible to see whether the YCJA influenced court convictions. Columns 4 to 6 present the percentage changes per 100,000 over three periods in time. Column 4 looks at the first period between 1991/1992 and 2002/2003. Column 5 looks at the second period between 2002/2003 and 2011/2012. And Column 6 shows the percentage change across the entire 21-year period (1991/1992 and 2011/2012).

Table 2.

ICCS Guilty Youth Crime Findings and Percentage Changes per 100,000 Between 1991/1992 and 2011/2012.

	Number of youth offence convictions per 100,000			Change per 100,000 between periods of time
Type of crime	[1]1991/1992	[2]2002/2003	[3]2011/2012	[4]1991/1992-2002/2003	[5]2002/2003-2011/2012	[6]1991/1992-2011/2012
Total offences^a
Both sexes	2,658.67	1,918.05	1,073.02	−27.86%	−44.06%	−59.64%
	(60,534)	(48,489)	(26,718)
Males	4,324.48	2,935.62	1,513.5	−32.12%	−48.44%	−65%
	(50,578)	(38,101)	(19,365)
Females	899.14	839.42	411.4	−6.64%	−50.99%	−54.25%
	(9,956)	(10,326)	(4,980)
Crimes against persons
All violent offences
Both sexes	396.25	439.63	289.92	10.95%	−34.05%	−26.83%
	(9,022)	(11,114)	(7,219)
Males	621.77	652.29	406.8	4.91%	−37.64%	−34.57%
	(7,272)	(8,466)	(5,295)
Females	158.04	214.04	118.3	35.43%	−44.73%	−25.15%
	(1,750)	(2,633)	(1,432)
Homicide
Both sexes	1.23	0.75	1.04	−39.02%	38.67%	−15.45%
	(28)	(19)	(26)^b
Males	2.05	1.16	1.17	−43.41%	0.86%	−42.93%
	(24)	(15)	(15)
Females	0.36	0.33	0.17	−8.33%	−48.48%	−52.78%
	(4)	(4)	(2)
Attempted murder
Both sexes	0.97	0.55	0.16	−43.30%	−70.91%	−83.51%
	(22)	(14)	(4)
Males	1.62	0.85	0.23	−47.53%	−72.94%	−85.80%
	(19)	(11)	(3)
Females	0.27	0.24	0.08	−11.11%	−66.67%	−70.37%
	(3)	(3)	(1)
Major assault
Both sexes	87.66	105.93	68.8	20.84%	−35.05%	−21.51%
	(1,996)	(2,678)	(1,713)
Males	139.45	157.72	89.49	13.10%	−43.26%	−35.83%
	(1,631)	(2,047)	(1,145)
Females	32.96	51.05	30.98	54.88%	−39.31%	−6.01%
	(365)	(628)	(375)
Common assault
Both sexes	166.68	151.22	82.13	−9.28%	−45.69%	−50.73%
	(3,795)	(3,823)	(2,045)
Males	229.57	191.77	101.37	−16.47%	−47.14%	−55.84%
	(2,685)	(2,489)	(1,297)
Females	100.25	107.79	52.54	7.52%	−51.26%	−47.59%
	(1,110)	(1,326)	(636)
Sexual assault
Both sexes	36.45	27.14	18.11	−25.54%	−33.27%	−50.32%
	(830)	(686)	(451)
Males	69.51	51.39	32.59	−26.07%	−36.58%	−53.11%
	(813)	(667)	(417)
Females	1.54	1.46	0.91	−5.19%	−37.67%	−40.91%
	(17)	(18)	(11)
Other sexual offences
Both sexes	14.93	10.56	9.68	−29.27%	−8.33%	−35.16%
	(340)	(267)	(241)
Males	28.13	20.11	16.41	−28.51%	−18.40%	−41.66%
	(329)	(261)	(210)
Females	0.99	0.49	0.91	−50.51%	85.71%	−8.08%
	(11)	(6)	(11)
Robbery
Both sexes	56.44	70.81	58.03	25.46%	−18.05%	2.82%
	(1,285)	(1,790)	(1,445)
Males	98.24	120.89	88.71	23.06%	−26.62%	−9.70%
	(1,149)	(1,569)	(1,135)
Females	12.28	17.8	11.73	44.95%	−34.10%	−4.48%
	(136)	(219)	(142)
Weapons
Both sexes	57.14	46.83	38.03	−18.04%	−18.79%	−33.44%
	(1,301)	(1,184)	(947)
Males	104.31	83.06	58.93	−20.37%	−29.05%	−43.50%
	(1,220)	(1,078)	(754)
Females	7.32	8.37	4.38	14.34%	−47.67%	−40.16%
	(81)	(103)	(53)
Uttering threats
Both sexes	19.76	61.23	42.89	209.87%	−29.95%	117.05%
	(450)	(1,548)	(1,068)
Males	31.72	91.07	61.82	187.11%	−32.12%	94.89%
	(371)	(1,182)	(791)
Females	7.13	29.67	18.59	316.13%	−37.34%	160.73%
	(79)	(365)	(225)
Criminal harassment^c
Both sexes	2.58	3.96	2.81	53.49%	−29.04%	8.91%
	(63)	(100)	(70)
Males	3.5	6.09	4.38	74%	−28.08%	25.14%
	(44)	(79)	(56)
Females	1.6	1.71	1.07	6.87%	−37.43%	−33.13%
	(19)	(21)	(13)
Crimes against property
All property offences
Both sexes	1,597.77	791.05	337.47	−50.49%	−57.34%	−78.88%
	(36,379)	(19,998)	(8,403)
Males	2,658.66	1,242.02	493.01	−53.28%	−60.31%	−81.46%
	(31,095)	(16,120)	(6,308)
Females	477.2	313.78	119.46	−34.25%	−61.93%	−74.97%
	(5,284)	(3,860)	(1,446)
Mischief
Both sexes	148.63	111.43	58.47	−25.03%	−47.53%	−60.66%
	(3,384)	(2,817)	(1,456)
Males	259.84	179.91	88.86	−30.76%	−50.61%	−65.80%
	(3,039)	(2,335)	(1,137)
Female	31.16	38.94	18.92	24.97%	−51.41%	−39.28%
	(345)	(479)	(229)
Administration of justice
Both sexes	202.74	184.29	127.59	−9.10%	−30.77%	−37.07%
	(4,616)	(4,659)	(3,177)
Male	307.55	264.58	156.47	−13.97%	−40.86%	−49.12%
	(3,597)	(3,434)	(2,002)
Female	92.03	99.26	67.91	7.86%	−31.58%	−26.21%
	(1,019)	(1,221)	(822)
Drug possession
Both sexes	29.34	67.09	35.86	128.66%	−46.55%	22.22%
	(668)	(1,696)	(839)
Male	49.93	115.34	59.48	131.00%	−48.43%	19.13%
	(584)	(1,497)	(761)
Female	7.59	15.93	7.85	109.88%	−50.72%	3.43%
	(84)	(196)	(95)

Note. Rare occasions where youth crime has increased are in bold. ICCS = Integrated Criminal Court Survey.

This category includes all offences including both nonviolent and violent crimes seen in Youth Court.

The raw ICCS data obtained from Statistics Canada for both sexes indicates that there were 26 guilty homicide findings, but does not indicate which sex was responsible for nine of these cases.

Prior to 1996/1997 there were no documented cases in Youth Court for the offence of criminal harassment and only one documented for 1996/1997. The results in this table show the cases for 1997/1998 rather than 1991/1992.

Looking at the first section of the table, one can see that the total rate of youth offences per 100,000 has declined over the entire period. Both boys’ rates and girls’ rates have declined, and declines are evident between 1991/1992 and 2002/2003, and between 2002/2003 and 2011/2012. The ICCS data show a decrease of 60% for Canadian youth court convictions for total crimes, both violent and nonviolent. When separated by sex, the rate decreased by 65% for male youth and 54% for female youth. Although the rate of guilty court findings for boys decreased more than the rate among girls, boys took part in more crime during the entire period, as revealed by both the raw and standardized numbers of guilty court verdicts in columns 1, 2, and 3.

In the subsections that follow, I look more closely at these trends by era, by type of offence, and by gender. Emphasis is placed on violent crimes, to assess whether there is any evidence that youth have become more violent over time, as many pundits proclaim. Property offences and other crimes will be included; however, only those crimes that show increases will be discussed in detail. In Table 2, those rare occasions where youth crime has increased have been bolded. Raw numbers for each category are in brackets and denote total guilty findings for all of Canada.

Violent Crimes

In Table 2, the section under the heading “Crimes Against Persons” shows the total trends for all violent offences. Column 4 shows an increase in rates of violent guilty findings for all youth between 1991/1992 and 2002/2003. Rates increased 11% overall, 5% for boys and 35% for girls. However, in the subsequent period, 2002/2003 to 2011/2012, rates of violent crime decreased, as column 5 shows. The overall effect, across the entire period, is illustrated in column 6: a decrease in overall rates of violent youth convictions by 27%. The decline in violent crime rates holds for both boys and girls: The decreases are approximately 35% and 25%, respectively.

The decline in overall rates of violent crime convictions reflects, by and large, trends for many specific offences. Homicide, arguably the most serious form of violence one can be convicted for, also decreased across the entire period. However, the main decreases were witnessed between 1991/1992 and 2002/2003. Overall youth homicide rates and boy’s rates increased slightly between 2002/2003 and 2011/2012. Girls’ homicide rates continued to decline across this period. Few Canadian youth commit homicide, and hence this category can see substantial percentage shifts, with small numerical changes.

As Table 2 shows, rates of attempted homicide declined across the entire period, as did the rates for common assault for the most part. Major assault increased in the first part of the period (1991/1992 to 2002/2003) for both boys and girls, before falling in the subsequent period. The overall trend was a decrease of 22% over the full 21-year period, with boys seeing greater declines than girls (36% and 6%, respectively). It should be noted that although boys’ rates fell more dramatically, their guilty findings in the major assault category amounted to 101 per 100,000, while girls’ rates were 31 per 100,000. Sexual assault rates also decreased in each time category and specifically by 50% during the total time period examined. “Other” sexual offences increased by almost 86% between 2002/2003 and 2011/2012; however, looking at the raw data, the large statistical jump is the result of five more girls being convicted of this offence across all of Canada. Weapons offences decreased over time despite a small increase in girls’ weapons offences between 1991/1992 and 2002/2003, which was followed by a decline between 2002/2003 and 2011/2012. In contrast, robbery offences fluctuated, increasing between 1991/1992 and 2002 and decreasing between 2002/2003 and 2011/2012. The net effect was a small overall increase in robbery convictions.

While most rates of violent guilty findings decreased over the period, the rates for uttering threats and criminal harassment have increased substantially. The long-term trend shows that between 1991/1992 and 2011/1912, those found guilty of uttering threats increased by 117% (95% for boys and 161% for girls). Again, although the percentage change for girls is higher, they are charged less often than are boys for uttering threats and the raw numbers remained small. The increase in youth convicted of uttering threats is the single largest increase observed over this period. Criminal harassment guilty verdicts also increased generally over the period. Prior to 1996/1997, no youth were found guilty of criminal harassment and in this year, only one boy in all of Canada was found guilty of this offence. In 1997/1998, there were 63 youths in Canada found guilty of this offence. It was decided to use 1997/1998 as the base year, since this provided a more realistic starting point. Starting from 0 or 1 results in exaggerated percentage changes (e.g., 7000%). Thus, column 4 represents the percentage change (per 100,000) between 1997/1998 and 2002/2003 and column 6 represents the percentage change (per 100,000) between 1997/1998 and 2011/2012. As column 6 shows, the increase between 1997/1998 and 2011/2012 was 9%. The number of youths found guilty of this crime is fairly small, so that small numerical increases result in significant percentage increases. Although there was a 9% increase in girls found guilty of this offence between 1997/1998 and 2002/2003, the long-term trend is downward, with a reduction of 33% between 1997/1998 and 2011/2012.

The observed increases in guilty findings for uttering threats and criminal harassment suggest there may have been policing changes during this period that resulted in greater numbers of girls and boys being charged. It may not be the case that there was a substantial increase in criminal behavior in this era, but rather certain youth behaviors may have been defined as criminal over the period. I discuss this more in the discussion section.

Overall, the data reveal a downward trend in youth crime for both boys and girls after the introduction of the YCJA, despite increases between 1997/1998 and 2011/2012 for the crimes of uttering threats and criminal harassment. In addition, Table 2 shows how some increases in violent crime may appear to be major; however, raw figures indicate that the high percentage jumps are reflective of small numbers.

Nonviolent Crimes

As shown in Table 2 (see Crimes Against Property heading), nonviolent crimes committed by youth generally declined between 1991/1992 and 2011/2012. Long-term trends between 1991/1992 and 2011/2012 for all property crimes show an overall decrease of 79%. Both boys and girls experienced this decrease. Looking at the various subcategories, we can see that rates for mischief and administration of justice also decreased across the entire period by 61% and 37%, respectively. There were small increases in the rates of girls’ convictions for these two crimes between 1991/1992 and 2002/2003. The increase of 25% in girls convicted of mischief reflects only about seven more girls per 100,000. These small increases were offset by subsequent declines. The only category of nonviolent crime to demonstrate an increase during this period was drug possession convictions which increased by 22% for Canadian youth overall; boys experienced an increase of 19%, while girls experienced an increase of 3%.

Assessing the Impact of the YJCA

Overall rates of youth crime were in decline before the YCJA was implemented, and they continued to decrease after the act was passed. There is evidence that rates for violent crime committed by youth increased in the years before the YCJA, only to decline subsequently. Looking at the trends subsequent to 2002/2003, only overall homicide rates, and girls’ other sexual offences increased. Even “uttering threats” convictions decreased in this period, compared with the previous era. Thus, with respect to violent crime and property crime, it appears that the YJCA may have resulted in a decrease in youth convictions.

Thus, the introduction of the YCJA appears to have influenced the ways in which young offenders were processed, resulting in more young people receiving extrajudicial measures and sanctions. One of the fundamental goals of the YCJA was to divert first time, petty offenders from the criminal justice system when possible. Hence, fewer youths may have entered the courts in the first place. The result was a decline in the numbers of those found guilty in youth court for the total offences category, and most other categories.

Crime Severity

The previous analysis shows a general decline over time in youth crime convictions. Nevertheless, occasionally in the media, articles claim that even though rates of youth crime are decreasing, the severity of youth crime is increasing. For instance, in a National Post article on girls and aggression, a deputy minster with the Ministry of Children and Family Development suggests that even though crime rates among girls have been decreasing since the 1990s,

[y]outh violence has always been with us [and that] what has concerned us is the ethics of fighting and the intensity. To say youth violence numbers have come down, doesn’t mean we no longer need to be concerned and vigilant. (Dickson, 2005)

These types of statements lead one to question, are today’s young offenders more extreme than their predecessors? I now turn to an analysis of the CSI to answer this question. As mentioned previously, the CSI tracks the severity of police-reported crime and takes into consideration changes in the incidence of a particular crime as well as its seriousness when compared to other types of crime. A limitation of this index is that it looks at all youth generally and does not distinguish between crimes committed by males and females. For this analysis, I consider three categories. The first includes all offences committed by young people in Canada. The second includes only violent offences, and the third only property offences. Figure 3 shows CSI trends between 1998 and 2014 (with 2006 as the base).

Figure 3.

Youth CSI between 1998 and 2014 split by crime type.

In Figure 3, the biggest decline is in nonviolent crime; severity rates decline fairly steadily across the entire period. The drop is fairly consistent after 2003, with a more rapid decline following 2007. In contrast, the index for all crime remains fairly flat, and then decreases from 2007 on. Violent crime severity increased slightly between 1998 and 2007, especially between 2004 and 2007. Since 2007, it has declined. The year 2013 witnessed the largest decrease in severity when compared to 2012 for all crime, violent crime, and nonviolent crime.

Statistics Canada CSI data do not support arguments that youth crime is becoming more severe. There was some limited evidence that severity increased between 1998 and 2007, for violent crimes only, but decreases in crime severity have occurred since 2007.

Discussion and Conclusion

Media reports frequently argue that today’s youth are more violent and more likely to engage in criminal activity than in the past. A close look at guilty court trends showed youth are not becoming more violent in Canada. Indeed, ICCS data indicate that rates of both violent crime as a whole, and specific violent offences, are decreasing among Canadian youth. Furthermore, the CSI data suggest that the severity of youth crime has also decreased; however, there is evidence that the severity of violent crimes committed by youth had increased prior to 2007. In a similar vein, the ICCS data indicate that some forms of violent crime—specifically major assault, robbery, uttering threats, and criminal harassment—increased during the 1990s. After the passage of the YCJA, however, there are signs that all forms of violent youth crime, except for homicide, decreased. The percentage increase for homicide appears large at almost 39% (per 100,000) between 2002/2003 and 2011/2012, yet the raw numbers indicate it was a difference of five cases and the overall rate for the 21 years examined has decreased. These trends not only challenge common depictions of youth crime but also suggest that the YCJA has met its goal of keeping youth out of custody, and diverting minor infractions away from the courts. This finding supports the results of scholars who found that the YCJA has resulted in decreases in the use of youth courts and youth custody for nonserious offences (Bala, Carrington, & Roberts, 2010).

This analysis also sought to determine how rates of youth crime vary by sex. Some media reports suggest girls are increasingly approaching, or outdoing, their male counterparts, and engaging in violent crimes like never before. ICCS data indicate that rates of girls’ crime are consistently below boys’ rates, and the trends for boys’ and girls’ crime are the same. Both have experienced decreases. The rates of change for boys and girls are different (and occasionally occur in opposite directions). Differential rates, however, simply reflect the low levels of crime committed by girls. Some may argue that the gap between girls and boys is closing with regard to their involvement in crime; however, this does not reflect a trend that girls are more criminal or violent. There is no evidence that girls are out of control. The narrowing gender gap in those appearing in Canadian courts reflects similar trends in the United States whereby boys’ crime rates continue to fall at a quicker pace than do girls’ (Hockenberry & Puzzanchera, 2015). Stevens et al. (2011) suggest that findings such as these are in line with prior research showing that girls tend to be punished more severely when they violate gender norms and this might help to understand why girls’ rates are not decreasing as quickly as boys’ rates.

Although the trends in youth crime are fairly consistent across crime and sex, there are some outliers, which deserve attention. Most notable are the increases in the number of youth charged with uttering threats since the early 1990s, and to a lesser extent, an increase in convictions for criminal harassment. It seems likely that these increases reflect legislative change, and changing attitudes and police practices toward certain youth behaviors. For instance, Ontario’s Safe Schools Act and Regulations came into effect in 2001 to target school-based violence. As a result, minor forms of violence and relational aggression—that would have been formerly ignored—have been brought to the youth court’s attention (Doob & Sprott, 1998). The main purpose of these “zero tolerance” policies, which began in the mid-1990s, was to limit the discretionary power of principals and school officials when it came to behavior that was considered harmful to other students, and to require mandatory suspension or expulsion. Furthermore, the “emergence of bullying as a social problem” has been cited by Chesney-Lind and Irwin (2008) as a moral panic in North America with many worrying about the violence and aggression of school-aged youth. These authors suggest that bullying used to be considered a normal part of growing up but is now being perceived as a form of deviance that must be addressed.

Criminal harassment was not included in the ICCS until 1996. Before this, youth might have been charged with intimidation, uttering threats, mischief, indecent or harassing phone calls, trespassing at night and breach of recognizance. In many cases, these behaviors may not have been criminalized at all. Criminal harassment in its current form includes stalking, cyber-stalking, and online harassment. The rise in criminal harassment and uttering threat charges among girls may be due to the moral panic and zero-tolerance bullying policies within Canadian schools.

Some scholars critique this change, and especially its potential impact on girls. For Chesney-Lind (2006), the change is part of “the feminist backlash.” She explains that in the current political era, the right-wing has used the “crime problem” to erode the rights of both women and people of color through law and criminal justice policies. For instance, any behavior that threatens the dominant systems of power can motivate various types of social control tactics. For Chesney-Lind and others, anti-bullying legislation treats all forms of youth bullying similarly (Chesney-Lind & Irwin, 2008). When it comes to criminal activity, it is not uncommon for girls and boys to stay true to their socially constructed gender scripts (Messerschmidt, 1997). For instance, Chesney-Lind and Irwin (2008) state that typically girls take part in what is called “relational aggression,” which includes emotionally hurtful behaviors like eye-rolling, talking about other girls, excluding others, joking about the appearance or clothing of other girls, spreading rumors, and sarcasm (Chesney-Lind et al., 2010). Boys on the other hand, may commit crime in a manner that reinforces norms of masculinity (Messerschmidt, 1993). Boys’ bullying tends to be more physical, and is more likely to include direct violence. Although the behaviors girls take part in are generally nonviolent, they still get caught up in the zero-tolerance policies and ultimately find their way into the criminal justice system (Chesney-Lind & Irwin, 2008; Chesney-Lind et al., 2010). It is argued that the conflation of these very distinct forms of bullying and interpersonal violence is resulting in unfair and paternalistic punishments for girls as their actions do not typically include physical violence (Chesney-Lind & Irwin, 2008; Chesney-Lind et al., 2010; Spivak, Wagner, Whitmer, & Charish, 2014). More research is also needed on changes in criminal harassment convictions and uttering threats, as these are the only areas in which increases in youth crime are evident.

Overall, there is reason to question media claims about youth crime. The statistics presented in this article highlight the ways that statistics can be misused or misinterpreted with large percentage increases and decreases being reflective of only a handful of criminal guilty findings. Academics should continue to dispel myths by contextualizing statistics in an attempt to provide an alternative representation of young offenders, including girls, in Canada. As ideologies change, research will be needed to reflect upon how legislative changes influence justice trends.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Jennifer Silcox is an assistant professor at Dalhousie University and specializes in the area of feminist criminology and youth crime in Canada.

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