Youth crime remains a significant problem for researchers, policymakers and
practitioners in the criminal justice system (Bala, 1997: Corrado, Cohen and Odgers,
1998 and Winterdyk, 2005). While some suggests youth crime appears to be remaining
relatively stable (Winterdyk, 2005) the growing number of young people will
nevertheless result in a higher number of crimes committed by youth (Fox, 1996).
Adding to this demographic reality, youth crime appears to be becoming more violent
and serious as youth begin a life a crime at an earlier age (Corrado and Markwart, 1994;
Savoie, 1995; Gabor, 1999, Winterdyk, 2005).
Despite wide ranging and varied research on the topic, there appears no consensus
among the researchers about why and how youth become involved in criminal behavior
(Knight and Tripodi, 1996, Loeber and Farrington, 1998). A significant additional
concern is the lack of agreement about the conditions under which youth may commit
serious violent crime.
While some are skeptical about the use and misuse of statistics to
assess the rate of violent offending by youth,
a useful contribution toward a better
understanding of the phenomena has been the identification of ‘multi problem youth’
(Corrado et al., 2002).
Multi problem youth display a variety of antisocial behaviors and engage in
substance abuse and although they comprise very small proportion of the population, they
account for a high level of criminal activity (2002). They often are born into families
without adequate prenatal care and sufficient parenting practices. In these cases,
biological factors and predispositions combined with improper socialization can produce
‘a complex, negative, childhood environment from which a child or young person is
unable to extract him or herself’ (Gordon and Kinney, 2006: 27).
These youth present a new challenge both in terms of conceptualizing the problem
of youth crime policy makers and providing criminal justice practitioners useful and
effective ways to respond (Corrado et al., 2002). While many argue for the need to
1
Additional work investigating Travis Hirsch’s social bond theory as providing potential protective factors
for youth found that impulsive behavior and secondary peer attachment may be more useful considerations.
See Boudreau, Melanie. (2002) Examining the Impact of the Social Bond for Serious and Violent Young
Offenders. (MA Thesis) School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University.
2
See for example the dissenting view in Bell, S. J. (2002). Young Offenders and Juvenile Justice: A
Century after the Fact (2nd ed.). Scarborough, Ontario, Canada: Thomson Nelson and the debate between
Carrington/Corrado and Markwart through a series of publications in 1994 and 1995)
2
Convention