Findings

Prevalence of referral to court and conviction

In the six provinces included in the study, 18 per 100 persons born in 1979/80 — 28 per 100 males and 8 per 100 females — were referred to youth court or provincial criminal court in relation to offences allegedly committed during the 10 years between their 12^th and 22^nd birthdays. More >>

Frequency of referral to court

This section examines the frequency of official offending of those members of the cohort who were referred to court at least once between their 12^th and 22^nd birthdays. More >>

Termination of court careers

It is not possible definitively to determine the end of the career (the date of the last referred incident) without tracking people until their death. The usual solution to this problem in research on criminal careers is to define a career as terminated if no offences are committed for some period of time. More >>

Duration of court careers

The duration of the court career refers to the length of time between the date of the first referred criminal incident and the date of the last. Like the age of termination of the court career, discussed in the previous section, the duration of the career can only be calculated for completed careers. More >>

Rate of referral to court

A previous section of this paper discussed the frequency of alleged offending of members of the cohort – that is, the total number of incidents for which they were referred to court. Here we discuss the intensity or rate of alleged offending – that is, the number of incidents referred to court during a fixed time period. More >>

Types of court careers

The literature on criminal careers is replete with attempts to characterize the entire career by simple typologies. More >>

Summary and conclusions

The court careers of persons born in 1979/80 and living in six provinces — Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta — accounting for approximately 78% of the population of Canada, were analyzed, using linked data from the Youth Court Survey and the Adult Criminal Court Survey for 1991/92 to 2002/03. More >>