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Copyright of Canadian Journal of Criminology & Criminal Justice is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the meaning of police denials of racial profiling. Based on interviews with members of Hamilton Police Service, we suggest that the concept of a police subculture offers the most credible backdrop for understanding what is commonly termed racial profiling. When contextualized in this manner, racial profiling is perceived by the police as one in a series of activities that define their work. We argue that, when seen in the context of police subcultures, such profiling occurs even in the absence of officers who may be inclined to prejudice or discrimination against members of visible minorities. As well, that subculture provides police with a powerful and convincing deflection rhetoric to neutralize claims that the policing institution has failed to root out the racist practices of its officers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a small residential private security program in an affluent Ontario neighbourhood in which individual residents hired a private firm to provide security patrols. Drawing primarily on in-depth interviews with program subscribers, this exploratory study examines consumers’ imaginings of the private security program and its context. Four key aspects of subscribers’ discourse – exclusivity, security, public and private patrols, and responsibility – are discussed. Through analysis of consumers’ understandings of these issues, we argue that the consumption of private security may be more complex and private security's purchase on the consumer imagination weaker than earlier theory and research has acknowledged. Based on these findings we suggest more research into private security consumption is required and that neighbourhood-initiated private security programs, especially those without state endorsement or support, are unlikely to proliferate in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Criminology & Criminal Justice is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Criminology & Criminal Justice is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Cannabis use and driving (CUD) is a growing public health concern. This study's main objective was to identify distinguishing characteristics associated with high-frequency CUD (HFCUD) activity (i.e., CUD &nvgt; 12 times) in a multi-site sample of university students who had self-identified as having driven a car within 4 hours of cannabis use in the past year. Participants for the study (n = 248; age 18-28 years) were recruited by mass advertising at five universities in Ontario. Participants were screened for eligibility and assessed by an anonymous interview between April 2005 and March 2006. Bivariate analyses determined factors associated with HFCUD (i.e., &nvgt; 12 times) vs. a low frequency of CUD (LFCUD); significant factors were subsequently entered into a discriminant function analysis model. HFCUD was associated with several variables, including frequent (i.e., at least weekly) cannabis use; daily driving; perception of own ability to drive not being impaired by cannabis use; and expectation of CUD in the next 12 months (all p < 0.0001). CUD among young drivers is an important health and safety risk requiring effective interventions. Given the strong association of HFCUD with frequent cannabis use, these phenomena need to be addressed conjointly. Furthermore, preventive interventions responsive to the specific socio-cultural contexts of possible CUD need to be developed and implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial cluster detection is an exploratory spatial data analysis technique that identifies areas or groups of areas with disproportionately high risk. Several local cluster detection methods have been developed; yet no research has critiqued these methods as they contribute to spatial studies of crime. This study aims to identify the locations of drug offence hotspots in Toronto and compare the clusters detected through four methods: (1) spatial scan statistic - Euclidean distance, (2) spatial scan statistic - non-Euclidean contiguity, (3) flexibly shaped scan statistic, and (4) local Moran's I. It was found that all methods detected clusters in the downtown, with fewer methods detecting clusters in the west and east of Toronto. It was observed that the spatial scan statistic detected the largest and most circular clusters, making it a suitable tool to inform general policing initiatives and highlight possible variables to be included in confirmatory research. The local Moran's I method, in contrast, found the smallest and most compact clusters, indicating that it is an appropriate test for identifying areas where resource intensive crime prevention and policing efforts should be targeted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conditions of release are attached to bail orders in an attempt to constrain the behaviour of accused young persons in the community. However, each condition, by virtue of its attachment to the release order, creates the possibility of a new criminal offence. Should youths fail to comply with any one of the conditions, they can have their bail revoked; they may not be released again; and they can be charged with the criminal offence of not complying with a judicial order. This study looks at the bail conditions placed on 83 youths released by justices of the peace from four different courthouses in the metropolitan area of Toronto, Ontario. On average 9.3 conditions were imposed and over 40% of the youths had more than 10 conditions attached to their release order. Many of the conditions that were routinely imposed had little or no relationship to the grounds for detention and facts of the alleged offence. Overall, 40.7% of conditions imposed had no apparent connection, 21.5% had an ambiguous connection, and 37.8% had a clear connection to the allegations or grounds for detention. Rather than exercising restraint and crafting narrow conditions that were clearly related to the grounds for detention and the facts of the alleged offence, conditions were generally vague and far reaching. The result of such practices is infringements on the liberty of legally innocent youths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the criminal trajectories together with the childhood predictors and adolescent correlates of trajectory-group membership in a sample of 386 adjudicated youth in Ontario. Study participants had served a sentence at one of two open custody facilities in Toronto between 1986 and 1997. Criminal offending, based on official records, was tracked for 16.4 years, on average (SD=4.1, range=9.8-28.7 years), from late childhood/early adolescence into the early 30s, on average. Childhood and adolescent factors reflecting individual, family, peer, and school domains were extracted from client files. A seven-group model best fit the sample. Results of the multinomial regression analyses indicated that antisocial behaviour and poor academic achievement in childhood and poor family relations, involvement in alternative care, and poor academic achievement in adolescence differentiated the low-rate desister trajectory from the high- and moderate-rate offence trajectories. Implications for identifying children and youth at risk for high-rate persistent offending so as to target them in prevention and early intervention programs are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the combined impact of neighbourhood context and alcohol use on violent offending among a representative sample of Toronto area high school students. Our primary aim is to determine whether the alcohol/violence nexus is sustained in different social contexts. Given the enormous cultural diversity of Toronto and related norms for under-age drinking, this is an ideal site to test the alcohol/violence relationship across neighbourhoods. The protective effects of family and school in mitigating violent events may also vary by neighbourhood and were considered. The results indicate that there is significant variation in the strength of the link between alcohol use and violent offending across neighbourhood context. In particular, established middle- to upper-class immigrant neighbourhoods appeared to have the strongest link between alcohol and violence. In economically disadvantaged contexts, the link between alcohol use and violence is stronger in immigrant neighbourhoods where whites are still the dominant racial group. Contrasts between these results and those found in American samples are discussed, as are recommendations for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bail conditions are placed on youths in an effort to ensure they return to court and to reduce danger to the public by constraining the behaviour of the accused in the community. These conditions, however, may have the unintended consequence of setting youths up to accumulate further criminal charges of failing to comply with a court order. The present study tracked a random sample (N=225) of youths who were held for bail hearings and ultimately released from a large Toronto court. Although ultimately close to half the sample had all charges related to the bail hearing withdrawn, close to a third of the sample were charged with failing to comply with conditions of release. Those who were subject to a bail order for a relatively long time and had numerous bail conditions were most likely to accumulate new charges of failing to comply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, girls, more so than boys, have been the recipients of rehabilitative efforts within the youth justice system. While the rehabilitative focus of youth justice legislation has diminished over the decades, there is still concern that girls may be more likely than boys to be recipients of treatment-based responses. We investigated this at the pre-trial stage, examining bail conditions placed on youths. Examining a sample of bail cases from a large youth court in Toronto, extending from April 2003 through to December 2008, we found that girls were significantly more likely than boys to be given a condition of attending a “treatment program,” especially if the offence was a minor non-violent offence. While the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) is very clear that youths cannot be detained or sentenced to custody for child welfare reasons (ss. 29 and 39(5)), there is nothing that explicitly prohibits the imposition of “rehabilitative” bail conditions. While the paternalistic treatment/rehabilitation efforts from earlier in the twentieth century may have faded considerably ( [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data gathered from local press coverage, this article examines how the shooting death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners at a Toronto high school was framed. In particular, we seek to explain why the media's initial attempt to contextualize the event vis-à-vis the tragedy of past school shootings eventually gave way to an interpretive frame rooted in ideological presuppositions about Toronto's underclass. We argue that when the media are confronted with a “must cover” event but lack essential information, the tendency is to adopt pre-existing, consonant frameworks. We conclude by exploring the socio-political significance of such essentializing frames vis-à-vis crime in poor communities inhabited mainly by people of colour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) contains more references to parents than did previous youth justice legislation, it contains little discussion of the principles underlying parental involvement. Thus, it is critical to explore the views of those who work in the youth justice system, as their perceptions may shape how they involve parents in the system. In this descriptive study, Ontario police, defence and crown counsel, youth court judges, and probation officers were interviewed regarding their perceptions of parental involvement in youth justice proceedings. Most respondents believed that the YCJA actively encourages parental involvement. In addition to support and advocacy for youth, officials indicated that legislators intend parents to play a role in addressing youths’ offending behaviour. Nevertheless, there were concerns that current legislation encourages parental involvement only in theory and that this does not translate into practice. Different, and at times conflicting, perspectives across respondent groups suggest the need for inter-professional training to enable the system to work more collaboratively to provide youth and parents with consistent information and expectations regarding parents’ roles and to promote more effective parental involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]