Original language of petition: English
The Government takes seriously the concerns of Canadians about youth crime and violent offences committed by youth. Our government believes that youth should be held accountable for their criminal behaviour with sentences that are proportionate to the severity of the offence and the young person’s degree of responsibility.
The Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) aims to protect the public by holding young persons accountable, promoting their rehabilitation, and, when appropriate, supporting the prevention of crime by referring young persons to community programs or agencies to address the circumstances underlying their offending behavior. The youth justice system includes mechanisms to respond to the exceptional cases of serious, violent crimes, while encouraging informal, yet meaningful responses to offences that are less serious in nature.
While the youth criminal justice system recognizes that, because of their age, heightened vulnerability, immaturity and reduced capacity for moral judgment, young persons are entitled to be treated differently than adults in relation to their offending behaviour, the YCJA does grant courts the authority to impose adult sentences in exceptional circumstances. Adult sentences are generally available where a young person 14 years of age or older is charged with a serious offence, the prosecution rebuts the presumption that the young person has diminished moral blameworthiness or culpability, and a youth sentence would not be of sufficient length to hold the young person accountable for the offence.
The Department of Justice monitors the impacts of the YCJA on an ongoing basis, working with other federal departments and provincial-territorial counterparts to analyse trends in youth crime, and conducting routine evaluations of its programs to ensure that identified policy objectives are being met.
The Government will continue to work to ensure that Canada’s youth criminal justice system serves as a model for youth justice systems around the world, one which provides flexibility for responding to incidents of less serious youth crime using informal measures, while providing the tools necessary to ensure that the most serious offences can also be dealt with in an appropriate manner.
Only validated signatures are counted towards the total number of signatures.
|Province / Territory||Signatures|
|Newfoundland and Labrador||2|
|Prince Edward Island||1|