‘If we are tough on crime, if we punish crime, then people get the message’

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 discursive category resulted in calls for a new ethic of punishment that emphasized protection 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 regulation 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).