Introduction to criminal justice - Assignment Example

The extrajudicial measures stipulated by the Act have significantly decreased incidents through which the offending youth are charged. The measures, which include police cautions, referrals, crown cautions, taking no further action by the police and extrajudicial sanctions, are presumed to be sufficient to hold nonviolent and first-time offenders accountable for their actions. However, the presumption was ill-adviced, as shown by the lack of effectiveness on most of the first time offenders as well as the youth who participated in serious crimes.

For example, a 2013 poll has shown that among the youth who committed violent crimes in 2011 and were given lenient judgments through extrajudicial means, 60 percent have already re-offended, which is only within a period of two years. For such serious youth crimes, prison sentences have declined by 25 percent within the same two year period. Before enacting the YCJA in 2003, the rate of youth incarceration in Canada was among the highest in the Western countries. It was characteristic of youth sentences not being proportionate to the degree of seriousness of the committed crime.

Custody was a common sentence even in cases not considered to be serious, and the youth courts handed very invasive sentences for minor crimes in a bid to address social and psychological needs. However, the YCJA reserves custody sentences for violent and repeat offenders as well as those who did not comply with optional sentences. This has given plenty of room for the increase of first-time offenders who often go free. Question Two As a crime prevention initiative, sentencing aims to contribute towards maintaining a safe, peaceful and just society as well as respecting the law.

With an emphasis on the future conduct, rehabilitative sentencing principles are oriented towards curing offending persons of the causes that led them to crime. On the other hand, retributive principles have their focus on the past conduct of the offending persons, making them pay for their crimes. Unlike rehabilitative measures which promote responsibility among offenders and an acknowledgment of the damage done, retributive principles also place a lot of emphasis on expressing the disproval of the society regarding crime.

In the past two decades, sentencing in Canada has shifted from rehabilitative to retributive principles because of the emphasis of the criminal justice system’s emphasis on crime prevention. In 1997, the criminal justice system, as well as people who participated in a poll, supported alternative sentencing, community service and rehabilitation services rather than prison and heavy fines. However, after the turn of the millennium and in keeping with the provisions of section 718(b) of deterring offenders and potential offenders from participating in crime, there was a shift.

The retributive principles were believed to send messages of severe punishment for crime. For example, the sentence for using a firearm while committing a crime increased from 10 years in 1999 to 25 years in 2001. In the same period, a life sentence for a violent offence was handed at the second conviction, down from the third one. That was a time when the criminal code had 29 offences that triggered the mandatory minimum sentence, whereas six years earlier there were only 19. With the increasing popularity of the mandatory minimum sentence among politicians, many private bills have been enacted with the belief that harsh penalties are effective