Understanding Breaches of Probation: An Examination of Juvenile Offences against the Administration of Justice in Canada.

A Failure to Comply (FTC) offense involves breaching a probation condition, such as curfew, non-association, reporting to a youth worker, etc. Although these are victimless offences, and are classified as relatively minor in Canadian legislation, previous research has found that they are more likely to be referred to court and to receive a custodial sentence than most predatory offences. However, very little is known about the way that the youth justice system processes youth who are apprehended for breaches. Using quantitative and qualitative data from the police and the youth courts in Ontario in 2001-02, this paper investigates under what conditions a police officer will charge a youth with FTC, what conditions are normally breached, and the judicial responses to these charges. We examine the impact of offender and offence characteristics, the prevalence of certain conditions attached to probation orders, and whether these charges and convictions occur in conjunction with an additional substantive offence. One of the most interesting findings to emerge is that the conditions of probation that youth are charged with and convicted of tend to be vague and minor in nature. However, the police and courts appear to define these offences as serious and consequently treat them as such. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]