‘If we are tough on crime, if we punish crime, then people get the message’
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| Author | Bryan R. Hogeveen |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474505048134 |
| Published date | 01 January 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
‘If we are tough on
crime, if we punish
crime, then people get
the message’
Constr ucting and governing the punishable
young off ender in C anada duri ng the la te
1990s
BRYAN R. HOGEVEEN
University of Alberta, Canada
Abstract
Through a detailed analysis of media reports and debates in the House of Commons
over the late 1990s, this article explores the construction and proliferation of Canada’s
punishable young offender. I suggest that the creation and dissemination of this discur-
sive category resulted in calls for a new ethic of punishment that emphasized protec-
tion of the public from risks associated with youth crime. Media, political, and public
concern about the punishable young offender propelled the Federal government’s
announcement that it would replace existing youth justice legislation (the Young
Offenders Act) with a tougher law premised on a framework of ‘accountability’. I begin
by situating recent developments in Canadian youth justice policy domestically and
internationally. Next, I highlight how the punishable young offender has been manifest
in, and governed through, increasingly harsh penalties, austere punishments, and high
rates of incarceration. Finally, I argue that calls for the punishment and intrusive regu-
lation of juvenile deviance were pitted at two different, yet interrelated levels – the
pervasiveness of the serious violent offender and valorizing victims of youth crime. In
concert, these two levels prompted the Federal government’s denouncement of youth
crime through tougher youth justice legislation (the Youth Criminal Justice Act).
Key Wor ds
accountability •victims •young offenders •Youth Criminal Justice Act
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PUNISHMENT
& SOCIETY
Copyright © SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oak s, CA
and New Delhi.
www.sagepublications.com
1462-4745; Vol 7(1): 73–89
DOI: 10.1177/1462474505048134
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INTRODUCTION
The entrenchment and dissemination of a punishable young offender was clearly
evident in Canada throughout the late 1990s as politicians and the public debated
solutions to the problem of youth crime. In the ethos of a ‘new punitiveness’ that
eschews any pretence of compassion towards serious offenders, the Federal Government
signaled its intention to come down tougher on problematic youth. For example,
Federal Alliance Member of Parliament (MP) John Williams articulated his Party’s
concern about how best to govern the problem when he stated:
Somewhere along the way, through our soft and fuzzy and pat them on the head and ask them
not to do it again concept, we have lost the notion that we have to teach our kids the differ-
ence between right and wrong . .. We hear in the crime capitals in the United States, for
example New York City, that crime is down 10% to 20%, that murders are down 10% to
20%. In the United States serious inroads into crime are being made. They are tough on crime.
Perhaps there is a correlation there . . . If we are tough on crime, if we punish crime, then
people get the message. (Canada, Hansard Debates, 25 September 2000)
A particularly disturbing consequence of Canada’s culture of punitiveness is the gross
overrepresentation of Aboriginal youth in centres of detention. As a group, native
adolescents are among the most disadvantaged in Canadian society. They are also the
most punishable.
Politicians and citizens alike have argued that a more punitive response to youthful offend-
ing is the panacea to the problem of spiraling youth crime rates. In 1998, mirroring develop-
ments in other Western nations, such as the United States and the United Kingdom,
Canada’s ruling Liberal party promised to protect the public and come down harder on
serious and violent young offenders through the enactment of more punitive legislation
(Zimring, 1998; Kempf-Leonard and Peterson, 2000; Newburn, 2002). Although politi-
cally and publicly popular, the recently enacted Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) (2002),
which became effective on 01 April 2003, promises a more punitive but less supportive and
protective youth justice system for the most punishable young offenders.
The form of punishment endorsed by politicians throughout the 1990s and that
which pervaded media and popular discourse was not associated with diversion,
probation, or fines, but was most often linked to incarceration and incapacitation. To
be certain, the discourse of intrusive punishment did not saturate youth justice policy
deliberations. Evident in political debates was, as David Garland (1996) and Anthony
Bottoms (1977) have observed in other locales, a division within Canadian juvenile
justice (Campbell, Dufresne and Maclure, 2001; Hogeveen and Smandych, 2001). On
the one hand, the Federal Government continues to promote innovations and
community based experiments in juvenile justice to govern first time and non serious
offenders. On the other, Canada’s youth justice policy has subjected the serious and
violent (punishable) offender to traditional carceral modes of intervention which, in
their 150 year history, have never proven particularly effective in reducing rates of
juvenile crime (Pitts, 2001b). No matter how seductive their communitarian and
restorative ends, Canadian youth justice has been underpinned by a pervasive mental-
ity of coerciveness (Muncie and Hughes, 2002).
During the early 1990s, as violent youth crime rates were escalating and victims’
advocates expressed their anger at what they perceived to be an ineffective youth justice
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