What you should know about this study

This study uses the Youth Court Survey and the Adult Criminal Court Survey to trace the path through the court system of all people born between April 1, 1979 and March 31, 1980. Individuals are included in the study population if they had been charged with at least one federal statute offence that was referred to court between April 1, 1991 and March 31, 2001. The data cover six provinces which collectively account for about 78% of Canada’s youth population: Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Manitoba and British Columbia are excluded from the study because they did not provide the adult court data which is necessary to follow the birth cohort to age 21.

Referral

The term “referral” signifies offences being brought to youth court or adult criminal court which occurred on the same date, whether or not there was a finding of guilt. As such, the terms “offence” and “offenders” used throughout this article refer to offences allegedly committed and alleged offenders.

Study population

Using the court survey data, one cannot track exactly the same group of individuals for ten years—from their 12th birthday up to their 22nd birthday. However, population data by province for each age and sex may be used to estimate the size of the birth cohort for each year as the individuals aged from 12 to 21 years old. For calculating overall prevalence rates, the study used the largest approximate population (the number of 21-year-olds in 2000) as its base; age-specific CST What you should know about this study rates, on the other hand, simply used yearly population data to determine the approximate population of each corresponding age group.

Classification of offences

Offences are classified into four groups—against the person, against property, against the administration of justice, and other — according to the nature of the most serious charge resulting from the incident. The most serious charge representing the case being referred to court is classified using a seriousness scale developed by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada. Readers should note that this classification procedure may result in the number of less serious offences being underestimated.

Offences against the person: This category includes homicide, attempted murder, robbery, sexual assault, other sexual offences, major and common assault, uttering threats, criminal harassment and other crimes against the person.

Offences against property: This category includes theft, break and enter, fraud, mischief, possession of stolen property, and other property crimes.

Offences against administration of justice: This category includes failure to appear, breach of probation, unlawfully at large, failure to comply with an order, offences under the Young Offenders Act, and other administration of justice offences.

Other offences: This category includes weapons offences, prostitution, disturbing the peace, residual Criminal Code offences, impaired driving and other Criminal Code traffic offences, drug possession, drug trafficking and other federal statute offences.