Public attitudes and juvenile justice in Canada

Abstract

345 Public attitudes and juvenile justice in Canada KATHERINE COVELL and R. BRIAN HOWE* Children's Rights Centre, University College of Cape Breton, Sydney, Canada The issue of juvenile justice in Canada has, since the 1984 enactment of the Young Offenders Act, continued to evoke antithetical responses from the general public and from professionals. Whereas professionals express concern about increased youth incarceration rates and insufficient treatment, the public calls for ever harsher penalties. The purpose of the study described here was twofold. First we aimed to identify predictors of the public's punitive attitude. Second, we tested whether provision of young offender