Teaching Youth Justice

Rationale
Students have now considered the principles and purpose of the Youth Criminal Justice Act and various crime scenarios. This lesson builds on these understandings by explaining that when a young person runs afoul of the law, the YCJA has provisions that allow for alternatives to the court process as a means of addressing less serious wrongdoing. This can be done through extrajudicial measures.

Procedure
1. Ask students if they believe that it is always necessary to have police charge youth who have committed an offence. (It may be helpful to reflect upon the scenarios in the previous two lessons.)

2. Distribute the handout Extrajudicial Measures.
KEY QUESTIONS:

• Do you think that it is a good idea to keep young people out of the formal youth court process if possible? Explain.
• Do you think that extrajudicial measures are adequate to hold young people accountable for their actions?

3. Use handout's concluding Incident: Jayne and Kirsten in Trouble to either assign discussion questions as individual work, or lead class in considering them.