Norm Bossé unveils recommendations on youth justice system

The province's child and youth advocate is releasing a report at this hour with 10 recommendations surrounding youth and the criminal justice system.

Norman Bossé says the report's recommendations aren't severe, but will hopefully treat youth criminals differently than adults.

"Our recommendations to government are reasonable, we are not asking for a new system," he said prior to the unveiling in Moncton.

"But we should not be incarcerating youth like we are presently."

Bossé's report is called, "More Care Less Court: Keeping Youth out of the Criminal Justice System."

[We] should not be incarcerating youth like we are presently.- Norman Bossé

The Conservative government made changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act in 2012, changes Bossé says were tougher on youth.

"In each permutation of the act there was a new philosophy that doesn't work."

The changes included an expanded definition of violent offence, mandatory custody in youth facilities regardless of whether they are given a youth or adult punishment and made it easier to keep violent and repeat accused youths in custody before trial.

Michael Boudreau, a criminologist at St. Thomas University, says he wants to see these recommendations put in place in New Brunswick.

"The use of pre-trial detention must be limited and more training needs to be provided to prosecutors on the Youth Criminal Justice Act and youth mental health and welfare matters," he says.

Boudreau says these recommendations are necessary for New Brunswick to move forward.

"These recommendations are crucial in order to dramatically improve the way that New Brunswick deals with youth-at-risk and youth who break the law,," said Boudreau. 

"For example, youth justice committees are long overdue in New Brunswick and they need to be put in place across the province as soon as possible."

Youth justice committees have been already established in other provinces. The committees bring together the victim, offender and other affected community members to resolve conflicts through talking and negotiating.

Bossé said he wants jail time to be a last resort for small offences.

"Things like breach of probation, shoplifting, these types minor offences we have to treat the youth a bit differently than we did in the '60s," he says.

Bernard Richard, a former child and youth advocate, made a 2010 presentation to the House of Commons standing committee on justice and human rights to call the Youth Criminal Justice Act reforms a step backwards.