Statistics Canada Article on Youth Court statistics

Statistics Canada has published an article on Youth court statistics, 2014/2015 that shows that the number of completed cases in youth courts was the lowest since the numbers were first collected more than two decades ago.

The rate of youth charged by police has also declined over the last decade.

Among the highlights:

• Decreases in the number of completed youth court cases occurred in all provinces and territories, with the exception of Nova Scotia, which reported a 2% increase. Ontario, which reported the largest number of youth cases among the provinces and territories, had the largest absolute decrease in the number of cases (-3,340). This corresponds to 23% fewer completed youth cases in 2014/2015 compared to the previous year in Ontario. The Northwest Territories reported the largest percentage decline in the country, with a 40% decrease in the number of completed youth cases. Newfoundland and Labrador and Alberta reported the next largest decrease (-29% each) from the previous year
• Property offences had the largest absolute decline (-2,791), followed by violent offences (-2,140), and administration of justice offences (-816). Proportionally, property offences had the largest decline (-21%), followed by administration of justice offences (-19%) and violent offences (-18%)
• Five Criminal Code offence types made up 40% of all completed cases in youth court. These five offences were: theft (11%) common assault (8%), break and enter (8%), failure to comply with an order (7%), and mischief (6%) (Chart 2).These five offences have been the most frequent offence types in youth court cases for the past decade
• In 2014/2015, more than three-quarters of accused persons in youth court cases were male (77%) (Chart 3). The proportion of youth accused that are male has consistently ranged between 77 to 78% for the past fifteen years
• Generally, individuals accused of having committed an offence when aged 16 to 17 years old, regardless of sex, made up the largest proportion of accused in youth court in 2014/2015