Assessing New Juvenile Justice Legislation: Changes in Police Discretion after the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

This paper examines the impact of the Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2003 (YCJA) on police discretion with apprehended young offenders in Canada. Using an interrupted time series design, data from the 1986 to 2004 Uniform Crime Reporting Survey are analyzed. The data suggest that the YCJA was successful in achieving its objective of reducing youth court referrals by structuring police discretion. Implementation of the YCJA caused a substantial change in the exercise of police discretion with apprehended youth: a substantial decrease in the use of charges and a corresponding increase in the use of alternatives to charging. The substitution of extrajudicial measures for charges occurred in all four regions of Canada, and, as predicted given the legislative direction, was much greater with minor offenses than with serious crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]