CRIME PREVENTION AND YOUTH CASE PROCESSING: WHERE AND HOW TO INVEST AND INTERVENE

THE JOHN HOWARD R.J. SOCIETY’S YOUTH COURT LIAISON PROJECT:

FINAL EVALUATION REPORT

BY

DON CLAIRMONT

ATLANTIC INSTITUTE OF CRIMINOLOGY DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY

DECEMBER, 2010

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

“15” The few young offenders accounting for much crime and court processing delays

CJS Criminal Justice System

CSC Correctional Services of Canada

GSS General Social Survey (conducted by Statistics Canada every 5 years)

FASD Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

HRM Halifax Regional Municipality

IWK Izaak Walton Killam Foundation

JHS John Howard Society

MLSN Mi’kmaq Legal Support Network

NSLA Nova Scotia Legal Aid

NGPS New Glasgow Police Service

PPS Public Prosecution Service (Nova Scotia)

PSR Pre-sentence Report

RCAP Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples

RJ Restorative Justice

SCC Supreme Court of Canada

YCLW Youth Court Liaison Worker project

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The evaluation assessment has been fully summarized in seventeen points on pages 57 to 59 of this report. Essentially the John Howard Society and its restorative justice agency initially had a broad set of objectives for the project wherein the YCLW would play both a liaison role to the CJS for youth and an outreach role vis-à-vis the accused youths and their families. Government specification centered strongly on the liaison role -getting the youth engaged more quickly in the court process via legal aid, to their own and to the justice system’s benefit. The governmental emphasis reflected clearly that the project was largely a response to the recommendations of the Nunn Inquiry concerning processing youth cases. As it turned out the project’s emphasis was indeed on the contacting the young offenders and encouraging them to make arrangements with Legal Aid if they had not already done so. There was little further contact if the youth was lawyered up or readily indicated an intention to do so or simply did not want any assistance from the YCLW. Lack of adequate contact coordinates and significant transiency among the youth meant that a large proportion of the youth who were referred to the YCLW, or appeared on the court dockets subsequently made available to the YCLW, were never contacted. Few youths were referred by the police agencies which of course largely eliminated the possibility of their being contacted by the YCLW worker prior to first court appearance. There was little emphasis on a more active and continuing outreach role for the YCLW for several basic reasons – narrow interpretation of the role’s formal mandate and a strict adherence to that in practice, such that linking the youth to NSLA, and / or making them aware of the need and value to obtain such counsel, became the almost exclusive objective; lack of effective ‘buy-in” to the project by many CJS officials which limited police collaboration and led few other court role players to utilize the services of the YCLW; turnover among the YCLW workers which limited the build-up of rapport with officials and familiarity with the young accuseds; no compellability for youths to meet with or talk to the YCLW worker. The contact of the YCLW with the young accused usually occurred over the telephone when such information was provided by police officials or by attendance at youth court but for various reasons the contact was quite limited and only in the last months of the project were they beginning to become more than a single short encounter. The YCLW in concert with the RJ agency staff did develop a YCLW manual, job description, information cards, and promoted and explained the initiative to CJS officials in both Truro and New Glasgow, especially in Truro where the worker had an office. There was a modest input into NSLA practices (i.e., suggestions for simplifying the process of certification for youth). Few services were provided other than encouraging the youths to link up with NSLA and only in last month or so, were a few significant contacts established with youth and/or parent/ guardians. There were also significant lessons and insights that could be drawn from this largely unsuccessful project, in large

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measure because the competent project management and staff did their best to carry out their mandate and thus, analyses of shortcomings has to focus not on them but on the major structural and problem specification issues such as effectively reaching the small number of multiple repeat offenders – a grouping we have labeled “the 15” since in so many jurisdiction in Nova Scotia roughly that number generate much of the youth crime and a much larger proportion of “secondary” crime (i.e., administration of justice crime). The project perhaps inadvertently highlighted the central query for crime prevention, namely where to put the emphasis, where to make more investment. In the section on Future Directions, pages 60 and 61 of the report, the assessment’s concluding argument is advanced as follows: The overall policy relevance of the YCLW project may well have been to sharply underline that the pivotal policy problem issue for crime prevention and for youth court administration is not the average length of time in processing youth cases. Rather, it is the fact that a small number of multiple repeat offenders – “the 15” as we have labeled them – cause a disproportionate amount of court time and account not only for much crime but also for perhaps as much as 75% of all the administration of justice or “secondary” criminalization which does take court time and limit effective court action. They constitute the proverbial “elephant in the room” for crime prevention and case processing. The YCLW project was not focused on this central problem and did not have the mandate or the tools to deal with it. A different model would appear to be required, a youth intervention outreach model, a model that does not exist in Nova Scotia but does have some modest commonality with the NSLA approach in HRM and the MLSN court worker approach in the Aboriginal community. In this evaluator’s viewpoint such a multi-tasked youth intervention approach pinpointing the central youth crime problem highlighted by the YCLW project could be a major step forward for the justice system in Nova Scotia.

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THE JOHN HOWARD SOCIETY’S YOUTH COURT LIAISON PROJECT: THE FINAL REPORT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section Page Introduction 6

The YCLW Approach 8 The Evaluation Framework 10 The Work Completed 13

Carving Out the task 16 The Agency and the Mandate 16 The Two Sites, Truro and New Glasgow 18 Other Court Liaison Programs in Nova Scotia 19

Case Processing Patterns 21 Analyzing Case Processing Times in Nova Scotia 21 Analyzing Youth Court Dockets 26

The Implementation of the YCLW Approach 33 Contacting Clients: Strategies and Contacts 33 The YCLW Client Interaction 36 The Detailed YCLW Client Write-Ups 40

Interviews and Contacts with CJS Officials 43 New Glasgow 43 Truro 47

Conclusion and Future Directions 57 Key Assessment Points 57 Future Directions 60 Works Cited 62 Appendices 64

The Form Requesting Information from Police Services 64 The YCLW In-Take Form 65 The Amended RJ Checklist Form 66

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THE JOHN HOWARD SOCIETY’S YOUTH COURT LIAISON PROJECT: THE

FINAL REPORT

INTRODUCTION CCJS (Canadian Centre of Justice Statistics) reports and other studies indicate

that youths, aged 12 to 17 inclusively, make up about 8% of the population and account

for 12% to 13% of criminal charges and more than 15% of recorded offenses. While the

trend for crime, including crimes of violence, has been downward from the high levels of

early 1990s, youth crime trends, especially with respect to violent offenses, have bucked

that pattern. These statistical findings have been especially valid for Nova Scotia

(Clairmont, Violence and Public Safety, 2008). The North-Central region of Nova Scotia,

where the communities involved in this youth court liaison project are located, mirrored

in most respects the provincial patterns in youth crimes (Department of Justice,

Provincial Task Force, 2006). Their youth population accounted for 19% of the

provincial youth population but for 22% of the recorded youth crime. Their shares of

provincial youth property crimes and violent crimes were closely proportionate to their

share of the provincial youth population. The one area of criminal offending where the

youths in these areas were over-represented was “other criminal code” (e.g., bail and

administration of justice offences) where their rate of 50 incidents per 1000 youth

compared to 38 incidents per 1000 province-wide; such over-representation is very

meaningful in a project such as this which aimed at reducing obstacles to court

processing of youth cases.

Theoretically, the evolution of citizenship in western democracies has been

identified as the key force behind the rise of various “ rights” movements, not the least of

which has been the evolution in youth justice policy from the Juvenile Delinquency Act

to the YOA in the 1980s and in 2003 the YCJA. Several studies (e.g., Degusti, The

Impact of the YCJA on Youth Case Processing, 2008) have examined the impact of the

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YCJA and shown that it has led to less incarceration, more extrajudicial responses to

youth offending and greater reliance on informal cautioning among police, all without an

increase in the overall level of youth crimes. Fewer youth cases proportionately are being

processed in court but a higher proportion of those that are court processed involve

violence and repeat if not prolific offenders. Currently, most national funding for crime

prevention among youth has focused on either anti-gang programs or on at-risk youth

especially at junior high age (i.e., 11-13). A neglected grouping would appear to be

youth, without gang involvement, who have come into conflict with the law for serious or

repeat offending. This project, responding to offending by all youth 12 to 17 years of age

who have not been channeled to extrajudicial measures and who live in milieus

reportedly characterized as not having quasi-gangs, balances out the social policy

attention.

The Nunn Inquiry, established by the Province of Nova Scotia in response to

youth violence and the shortcomings in the response of the criminal justice system,

addressed general issues concerning young offenders, especially high-risk youth. In his

report, (Spiralling out of Control, 2006), Nunn advanced 34 recommendations. A number

of the recommendations dealt with educational policies, others with the need for changes

to be made in the YCJA and still others for greater provincial coordination of its services

for troubled youth, and for its development of a child and youth strategy. There were

three recommendations – two of which were the number one and number two

recommendations respectively - which have been the raison d’etre of the Youth Court

Liaison project. The first Nunn recommendation focused on the immediate aftermath of

arrest, called for reducing the delay in a youth passing from arrest to court appearance

and suggested that the youth should appear in court within a week of arrest if not at the

next scheduled Appearance Date. The second Nunn recommendation referred to the need

to reduce overall delay in court processing from arrest through to disposition and for

determining the reasons for the delays and subsequently establishing norms or standards

to reduce them. Recommendation # 26 which called for a coordinative, interdependent

strategy of interventions, and supports to at-risk youth and their families, also appears to

have provided impetus for this project, especially taken in conjunction with

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recommendations calling for police to appoint youth court liaison officers

(recommendation #9) and for the Public Prosecution Service to have specialized Youth

Court Crowns where the numbers warrant it (recommendation #10). The

recommendations highlighted here (recommendations #1, #2, #26) focus on public safety

but also carry a presumption – certainly a hope – that the greater awareness of and timely

engagement in the CJS processing by the young offenders and their guardians could have

positive implications for effective intervention, reduced recidivism and perhaps for

alternative justice options.

THE YCLW APPROACH The Colchester / Central John Howard Restorative Justice agency was well

positioned to develop and implement a Youth Court Liaison project to address the Nunn

recommendations concerning delays in justice processing, assisting in the coordination of

CJS activities, and linking young offenders and their guardians to supportive community

services. It has valuable experience providing restorative justice programming in the

Central region of Nova Scotia, has collaborated with Correctional Services in special

programming for youth on probation (Marshall, Working Together Project 2004), enjoys

a high level of respect from CJS role players, and has strong relationships with

community service providers, governmental and non-governmental. It is also now

embedded in the John Howard organization, a long established service provider to young

and adult offenders. In preparing its proposal for the Youth Court Worker (YCW) liaison

project, the agency held a consultation with members of its regional restorative justice

committee and others. The consultation fleshed out the problems and issues with respect

to the delays Nunn cited (e.g., arriving in court on plea day unprepared, lack of parental

involvement in the process, causing delays in the PSR assessments) and helped define the

terms of reference of the YCW liaison role as “a neutral friend of the youth court

providing information and navigational services to all youth with matters before the

court”, speeding up the processing, and referring youths and guardians to supportive

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community services (Comments Regarding The Youth Court Liaison Worker Pilot

Project, 2008).

The Pilot Project proposal that emerged put forth a number of central objectives

for the YCW liaison activity (Project Proposal, 2008). The first objective was deemed to

be researching and advancing a YCW model that would target the causes of delays at the

four nodal points, namely arrest, court appearance, securing legal aid, and cooperating

with the PSR assessments; these causes were presumed to primarily involve

informational and motivational considerations on the part of youths and guardians and it

was considered that the emergent model could have implications for other areas of the

province. Another objective, clearly related, pointed to the development of a strategy /

protocol for enhancement of the youth’s participation in the court process (e.g., a “cheat

sheet” dealing with demeanor and so forth and transcending the issue of delays). A third

major objective advanced the importance of not only informational sessions and

associated materials for youths and parents / guardians but also the value of support

activities and referrals to community services and programs for both parties (e.g.,

parental support groups). The fourth major objective dovetailed with the 26th Nunn

recommendation and emphasized the YCW model contributing to partnerships with and

among other CJS role players.

The project proposal also emphasized the value of having a comparison site and

here the agency was able to draw upon the findings of its recent collaboration with

Probation Services where sharp differences were found between the Truro and New

Glasgow regions in the CJS approach to young offenders (Marshall Working Together,

2004). These two regions were selected as comparison sites, a strategy that was

appropriately deemed likely to enrich the central project objective of researching the

causes of delays in processing youth cases and advancing, at the conclusion of the

project, nuanced recommendations for dealing with them, whether a single YCW model

or variants thereof (for example, not all regions may for example have the caseload to

justify a special full time YCW role).

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The YCW liaison project was scheduled to be in place until the end of the fiscal

year 2009-2010. Its preparatory work – setting up the project, hiring the staff, creating an

initial training manual, selecting an evaluator, and contacting CJS role players in both

sites – was essentially accomplished as per schedule and the phase of service delivery

began in the late winter/ early spring of 2009. It could be expected that the YCW role and

the project’s goals and strategies would evolve as more was learned about gaps in CJS

processing that are amenable to YCW action and how to respond to the needs of the

youths and parents. The unfolding of the project and the implementation of its services

and networking are described below.

THE EVALUATION FRAMEWORK This evaluation has been truly a formative type evaluation in that the evaluator

was deeply involved with the project since the evaluation was formally approved and, in

addition to providing specified deliverables, participated regularly as a member of the

project’s advisory group. The scheduled time frame for the evaluation was from January

2009 to March 2010. Oral reports were provided on regular basis to the project staff and

to the project’s advisory group and a progress report was submitted in January 2010. A

draft final report was submitted in March 2010. The project received an extension till the

summer of 2010, reasonable in light of turnover in the YCLW role and delays in reaching

formal agreements with the collaborating CJS partners.

The evaluation targeted baseline and subsequent measures / findings and a

comparison between the two sites, Truro and New Glasgow. There were diverse

methodologies employed, including the following,

Examining the relevant academic and social policy literature

Interviews of police, court officials, project staff and others, in-person, by

telephone, and via email

Interviews and emails with front-line persons engaged in other court liaison

projects in Halifax and the mainland Mi’kmaq First Nations

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It was anticipated that any interviewing of youth and parents / guardians would

have to be thoroughly considered by the project advisory committee. Several

strategies were advanced including an equivalent to an “exit” type questionnaire

and / or obtaining signed agreement to interview the youths and their parents /

guardian on the impact for them of the YCLW service (e.g., the information

received, the service contacts facilitated) and their assessments of case processing

issues. Unfortunately, for reasons noted below, no such interviews were possible.

Secondary data analyses of youth offending patterns through youth court dockets

Secondary data analyses of relevant Department of Justice (JEIN) data to examine

case processing by area

Access to YCLW workers’ files with respect to contacts with youths and their

parents / guardians to examine the number and features of the contacts, the

referrals to other services; the interactions and arrangements with service

providers, and with police and court role players.

Participating in as many of the project advisory group meetings as possible The evaluation matrix advanced below indicates how the evaluator initially

operationalized the evaluation with respect to first three objectives of the YCW project

stated above. The fourth objective – the partnership and networking with the criminal

justice role players – was seen to entail both formal and informal linkages, including the

project’s advisory group structure, collaboration on key tasks such as preparation of a

YCLW training manual and brochures, appreciating the ways in which the YCLW

worker could / should fit in order to realize the other three objectives, and determining

the impact of the YCLW worker activities on the conventional criminal justice system

roles. The references in the matrix to the data collection periods remain as initially

advanced but project delays and implementation issues as well as the project extension

accorded by the funding agency meant they were off by roughly six months.

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EVALUATION MATRIX

PROCESSES

ACTIVITIES & OUTPUTS

INDICATORS DATA SOURCES

DATA COLLECTION PERIOD

Objective #1: reduce delays and barriers; four nodal points of Youth involvement in CJS (police, NSLA, court, probation.

Total days arrest to court to disposition; # of appearances; identify barriers and facilitating factors.

Department of Justice plus YCW files. Two project sites. Interviews with key CJS players

February/April 2009 Baseline and periodic thereafter, concluding in February/March 2010

Salient Youth Justice Experiences elsewhere

Literature, HRM and Sydney experience

April /May and thereafter

Informational and motivational requisites for youth and guardians’ engagement.

Interviews with CJS officials, observation at Youth court, youth focus group reports, possible interviews with youths and guardians, YCW files. Two sites

May 2009 through march 2010

Objective #2: enhance the engagement and awareness of young offenders in all processing phases

Materials prepared. Preparedness and changes in behaviour and attitudes; knowledge of the possible implications of one’s approach / actions; possibly more RJ referrals, less repeat offending

Court observation, YCW files, interviews with police and CJS officials, Department of Justice / RJ agency stats, possibly interviews with youths /guardians

Baseline over the next three months and periodically thereafter, especially in final phase January- February 2010

Objective #3: information to young offenders and parents/guardians re arrest, court processing etc and community services; YCW support activities and referrals

Identification of needs and gaps. Contacts with and referrals to appropriate community services. Brochure and other material produced. Direct supports activities.

YCW files and outputs. Interviews with “high-end” service providers and CJS role players. Possible interviews with youths and guardians. Two site comparison

Baseline February –May, 2009 and periodically, thereafter, especially in last quarter of the project’s life in fiscal 2009-2010

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WORK ACCOMPLISHED In keeping with the evaluation design, the emphasis was placed on literature

review, baseline one-on-one interviews with key criminal justice officials in the Truro

and New Glasgow areas (police, crown prosecutors, defence counsel, probation officials

and judges), accessing and analyzing contextual secondary data, and meeting with the

Youth Court Liaison Worker (YCLW) and the project manager as well as attending eight

advisory committee meetings in Truro and two in New Glasgow. Approximately 30 trips

have been made to Truro and three to New Glasgow. There was no direct contact with the

primarily targeted users of the service, whether the youths or their parents / guardians,

simply because little meaningful or substantial relationship had been established with any

of them by the YCLW workers until the very last weeks of the project.

The salient literature accessible on the youth court liaison role has been quite

modest even when supplemented by extensive web searches (i.e., googling “youth court

liaison” and similar phrases). Most of the items discovered have been proposals and

announcements while rare have been detailed descriptions or substantial assessments.

Three themes have been noted in the sparse literature, namely an emphasis on the youth

court liaison role for responding to special racial/ethnic groupings (e.g., Aboriginals in

Canada and Australia / New Zealand, Somalis in Ottawa), the provision of such services,

usually by social workers, for youths who are considered serious offenders or have

special challenges (e.g., mental disorders), and a broad characterization of the youth court

liaison role to include, if not emphasize, a navigator function linking the worker and the

young client with other programs and social services.

The literature reviewed at length particularly concerns the youth court liaison role

among the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia, a service provided by Mi’kmaq Legal Support

Network (MLSN), and the youth court liaison service in Halifax Regional Municipality

provided under the auspices of Nova Scotia Legal Aid. The basic literature on the

Mi’kmaq court worker program has been Clairmont and McMillan (2001, 2006) and it

has been supplemented through informal discussions with Mi’kmaq court workers.

Materials from Australia and New Zealand have been helpful in considering the youth

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court liaison role there for Aboriginal offenders. Background literature dealing with

programs for youth, such as the restorative justice program and an earlier project in

association with Probation Services (Marshall, 2004), carried out by the Truro agency

administering this youth court liaison project have also been closely examined. The latter

evaluation also examined the criminal justice system’s response to young offenders in

breach situations in the two areas being compared in this evaluation, Truro and New

Glasgow (Westville). Another literature source of some value has been that associated

with early case resolution initiatives across Canada which have attempted to speed the

court processing of adult cases. In a major study recently completed by this evaluator

(Clairmont, 2009), the significant challenges facing such efforts were clearly

demonstrated and it was found that four variables in particular thwarted the early

resolution objectives and were associated with longer time spans for case resolution,

namely if the accused person was facing a likely jail term, was a multiple repeat offender,

was charged with a violent offence and was represented by Legal Aid counsel.. It will be

interesting to see if the same factors are dominant in accounting for delays in the

processing of youth cases.

Personal interviews with the CJS officials or role players mentioned above were

conducted in the Truro and New Glasgow areas. All told there have been twenty-one

such interviews of roughly 1.5 hours duration carried out. Sixteen were completed as

baseline interviews and five of these role players were re-interviewed at least once again

in the later stages of the project; additionally there were discussions with a handful of

CJS role players at the meetings of the advisory committees for the YCLW project. The

interviewees were all cooperative and generally had a positive view of the court liaison

project but they also differed in their level of initial and ultimate enthusiasm for it and in

their assessments of its “value-added” to the current processing of young offenders.

There were some significant differences as well in how they anticipated taking advantage

of the youth court liaison project (e.g., drawing upon the YCLW experience to assist in

sentencing considerations) in their own responsibilities but much commonality in

ultimately viewing it as marginal and of limited value as implemented. The analyses of

these interviews are provided below by area and criminal justice system role. The modest

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turnover among these officials coupled with the significant turnover in the YCLW role

meant that only recently in the last months of the project were networking linkages

stabilized especially in the Truro area. In addition, there have been a handful of

interviews and email exchanges with other officials and CJS role players such as MLSN

staff, the NSLA court liaison worker, and officials in the Nova Scotia Department of

Justice; in all these instances the contacts have been multiple.

Several secondary data sets have been analysed to provide salient contextual

information for evaluating the YCLW project. The “Community Counts” data system

developed by the Nova Scotia Department of Justice has been accessed for information

on socio-demographic and criminal justice factors for both Truro and New Glasgow,

facilitating comparison between them and with the province as a whole. A special data

set, accessed by the evaluator from the court administration data systems for 2004 and

2005, and another from Nova Scotia Corrections have provided for useful analyses of

crime patterns among young offenders in the project areas. A data system created in 2009

by Nova Scotia Justice at the evaluator’s request has provided information on youth court

case processing for Truro, New Glasgow, HRM and Nova Scotia as whole, over the years

2006 through 2009; the data have been analysed by year and jurisdiction along with

variables including gender, type of offences and the number of days from first appearance

to final appearance. The analysis of this data set is provided below. Another data source

utilized has been the court dockets for Truro and New Glasgow; these data, available

since April 2009 for Truro youth court but only sporadically in the case of the New

Glasgow youth court, provide for some insight into the impact of a small number of

repeat offenders not only on the court load but also on court processing time for different

young offenders. This data set is analysed below primarily for the Truro youth court.

There have been some twenty-six meetings (often entailing long interviews) with

the youth court liaison worker and the project administrator. These meetings were

especially necessary since there was significant turnover in the YCLW role, namely three

persons in a nine month period. In addition, the project, like most projects where

successful implementation requires collaboration from other governmental services, has

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encountered – despite the excellent liaison workers that have been employed - many

challenges in quickly securing referrals and accessing crucial data; accordingly, detours

were necessitated and alternative strategies advanced, all of which affected the timing

and also the specifics of the evaluation strategies. Most significantly, the referral issues

limited the potential impact of the YCLW on the criminal justice system in Truro and

New Glasgow and any proposed contact by the evaluator with the targeted clients of the

project. The referral problems and general low level of collaboration of police (aside

from the Truro Police Service) and other CJS officials continued to challenge the project

to the very end. A three month extension to the project occasioned only minimal

improvement either in the YCLW project’s engagement with either CJS officials or

accused youths and their parent/guardians but did help in reflecting upon and analyzing

the issues facing such an important initiative. In addition to the cited meetings and

interviews with the YCLW staff, the evaluator has had complete access to all YCLW

worker files and to all materials, including the project’s narrative report accompanying

this preliminary evaluation report.

CARVING OUT THE TASK

The Agency and the Mandate

In launching this initiative, as noted above, the Truro John Howard Restorative

Justice agency was well suited in relevant experience with youths in trouble, well-

embedded in the CJS and respected by CJS officials and community groups, and familiar

in partnering with other parts of the criminal justice system in advancing special

innovative projects. The agency leadership in collaboration with the regional restorative

justice committee had delineated a clear set of objectives and a plan of action that was in

keeping with the imperative of the funding body, namely to “develop a front-end youth

court liaison worker program modeled after the Mi’kmaq program designed to get the

youths properly prepared for court and reduce adjournments”. This thrust in turn closely

followed the recommendations of the special justice committee that was advising on

government’s response to the Nunn Inquiry. The project leaders conceived of the project

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as having three phases, namely a research phase, a preparation for service delivery phase

and a service delivery phase (Henderson and Miller, Narrative Report 2010). The first

two phases, as described in the Narrative Report, were well-implemented despite an

important staff turnover, testimony perhaps to excellent reputation enjoyed by the

agency. These are discussed below in the section on project implementation.

The last phase was much less successful. Service delivery, given the interpreted

mandate of the project, depended considerably on obtaining referrals (especially of

course timely referrals) from the police services such that the YCLW worker could

contact the charged youth prior to first appearance in court. Otherwise, the YCLW

worker had to wait until the youth made a court appearance by which time given the

adherence to the narrow interpretation of mandate there was little to do since the youth

had contacted NSLA or was advised to do by the Court or was uninterested in the YCLW

services. The police referrals generally were not forthcoming despite the considerable

effort expended on trying to persuade these bodies, getting an order-in-council (this did at

least yield some court dockets), and the general approval of the initiative by the same

police services. Only in last scheduled months of the project was a solution achieved that

could have resulted in substantially more referrals but by then the project was seen by

CJS officials as ending soon. Three interlocking problems have created this Achilles heel

effect, namely (a) the concentration on implementing the project’s mandate solely at the

front-end; (b) foregoing any YCLW role once the accused youth was in touch with Legal

Aid; (c) the lack of embeddedness of the YCLW worker in the CJS system which was

seen as a short-term project marginal to restorative justice agency itself. Under these

conditions goodwill did not translate into close collaboration for a variety of reasons

elaborated in sections below. Possible, related referral sources were not pursued because

the mandate was interpreted as front-end exclusively, that is, it was far too restrictively

implemented in retrospect. The project unexpectedly ran into formidable barriers in

achieving its primary service mandate and did not pursue probation referrals which had

been discussed at the beginning of the project nor did it engage parent / guardians to any

extent or develop a strategy to deal with the indifference to the offer of assistance on the

part of repeat young offenders. The turnover among YCLW workers certainly did not

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help embed the program with the CJS role players either. It appears that at conclusion

some of the blockages had been removed and there was an appreciation of the too

restrictive interpretation of the mandate, and encouragement by CJS officials to elaborate

the YCLW worker role (e.g., a court liaison navigator function as well) in order to better

serve the youths and the CJS system itself.

The Two Sites: Truro and New Glasgow

The two areas that are serviced in the YCLW project are similar in many respects.

According to the provincial “community counts’ website, and based on the categorization

‘Justice Police District”, the two small urban areas have been struggling to hold their own

population-wise. Truro has barely held its population, going from 11,940 in 1996 to

11,765 in 2006, whereas for New Glasgow the decline was modestly more significant, its

population going from 9915 from 9455 over the same period. Both urban areas

experienced a major decline in the population’s 0-4 and 5-9 age categories over that same

ten year period, a fact which indicates future population decline. Neither area has a large

minority population but both do have small numbers of African Nova Scotians and

nearby First Nations. Truro has had a slightly higher level of violence and property crime.

Truro in 2007 had a rate of violence per 10,000 of 224 and for property of 701, while

New Glasgow rates were 198 and 557 respectively. Interestingly, both sets of rates were

slightly higher than those for either Halifax Regional Municipality under the Halifax

Regional Police Service jurisdiction or Cape Breton Regional Municipality under the

Cape Breton Regional Police Service.

It will be reported below in the section on provincial rates of youth case

processing (average number of days to process youth court cases) that, in recent years,

youth case processing times have been significantly less in New Glasgow. It is not clear

what factors account for this difference and the accessible data do not lend themselves to

more sophisticated statistical analyses. The Working Together project (2004) which

involved partnering between restorative justice and probation services in the two areas

also reported significant differences between the small urban areas but advanced no

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underlying causes. As will be seen in the write-up of interviews with CJS officials, there

are suggestions that the CJS role players in the two urban areas have differed in their

approaches to youth and other justice issues but these assertions are cast in rather

idiosyncratic terms (e.g., judge X has this approach, the crown here has a different policy

etc) and not linked to underlying cultural or socio-economic factors so appear rather

idiosyncratic; perhaps the assertion if valid attest to the significance of individual styles

even in a highly regulated field such as the CJS. The YCLW project for a variety of

reasons, convenience and the possibility of different perspectives among them, arranged

for each area to have its own project advisory committee consisting of CJS officials;

perhaps, the outcomes of the project could shed some light on the presumed differences.

Other Court Liaison Programs in Nova Scotia

The two other court liaison programs in Nova Scotia are the Mi’kmaq, province-

wide (three full-time staff), court worker program managed by MLSN and the youth

court liaison worker employed full-time in HRM by NSLA (there is a similar program for

CBRM). The YCLW worker spent a few days on-site with these two projects. The MLSN

program was advanced as a possible model for the YCLW project but in the most crucial

respects it is not a great fit. The MLSN court workers reportedly are minimally involved

with the client prior to meeting up at the latter’s first appearance. The court workers do

get court dockets but rarely in such advance time that they can schedule meetings with

the accused persons, and they do not receive earlier referral information from the police

services with regard to the contact coordinates of and arraignment date for the young

accused persons. Of course, in smaller Aboriginal communities, where kinship ties are

densely intertwined, there may be significant informal networking that minimizes the

lack of formal notification but that cannot be simply assumed and in fact the court

workers have said that they do not usually meet the accused before first court date.

Secondly, the MLSN court workers are typically more holistic in their engagement with

the youth, following the file through all court phases and not withdrawing once the youth

has a lawyer. Thirdly, they can, for a variety of reasons (cultural, the service’s

recognition in the First Nations and the program’s longevity) reportedly be more

19

“aggressive” in shepherding the client and navigating him or her through the justice paths

and possible involvement in community services and programs. Fourthly, and perhaps the

most important difference, the MLSN court worker has much more embeddedness and is

a court player recognized as significant and readily accepted by the CJS officials of all

stamps for constitutional, policy, and common sense (knowledge of reserve life, capacity

etc) reasons. The MLSN court worker has a fundamentally distinct “consultative role”.

Under the circumstances, the learning model would be limited more to information about

court procedure and related basics unless the MLSN court workers were probed for their

insights as to why some of the accused persons they work with do not show up for

appearances or breach undertaking and so forth (something that happens frequently even

in the Eskasoni court according to court officials there); it does not appear that these

topics were broached by the YCLW worker in their interaction with MLSN staff.

The NSLA court liaison worker is part of the NSLA front-end team. A veteran in

the position, she has become a pivotal person not only for visiting the cells as well as

attending court in order to arrange the legal service for the youths, but also because as a

result of her longevity and effectiveness in the role, she performs other services for Legal

Aid and even for other CJS role players (e.g., tracking the youth through myriad

addresses etc). A busy person (just a year ago there were two court liaison workers in

HRM to deal with a caseload that she held has not declined in recent years, but one

retired and was not replaced) she does not do much referral of youths to local services

and programs though she has done so on occasion. She could see much value-added in

their being a youth court liaison role player who could take on such a task. In her view

there is no especial overall problem of drawn out case processing in the case of youths;

reportedly, the NSLA has a three week standard for dealing with a case from arraignment

to resolution or trial The police write up the disclosure for all cell cases within 24 hours

and adhere to the Nunn-recommended standard of 21 days from arrest to first appearance

and the province-wide, mandated 7 days for serious cases.

Both the NSLA court liaison worker, and the police officer through whom all

youth court cases in HRM are channeled, reported that the drawn out court processing

20

problem for youth (and they could have added, for adult accused persons in criminal

justice system) is essentially post-arraignment. They both contended, in their separate

interviews, that the issue is one of “serious repeat offenders who don’t want to hurry to

jail and / or are caught on other crimes while waiting to get their first case processed or

who have an attitude”. The court liaison worker – and the police officer – acknowledged

also the equity claim for a court liaison type position outside metropolitan Halifax, noting

that small population numbers could block funding for such positions unless the worker

was multi-tasked and both considered that adding, for example, a navigator dimension to

the role would be a valuable enhancement. In their views, for reasons of equity and

effectiveness, they would envisage a more holistic type court liaison mandate outside

metro and one where the priority was on working with the minority serious repeaters who

take up so much court time (“concentrating on the 15% would give bang for the buck”).

The court liaison worker also commented that becoming part of the core criminal justice

system response, even in one organization, such as NSLA, nevermind with other

officials, takes time. She held that it would take months of “being there” in order to begin

to overcome marginality, adding “it is not a matter of hostility but rather the need for

time and experience to sink in”. In her view, it is a matter of equity that there be such a

service in places like Truro and New Glasgow and working effectively with repeat and

serious young offenders might well require such a broadly mandated role.

CASE PROCESSING PATTERNS

THE CONTEXT: A. CASE PROCESSING TIME Youth Case Processing in Nova Scotia, By Area, 2006-07 to 2008-2009

Given the stringent rules developed in recent years for police to lay charges as

soon as possible subsequent to arrest and usually within a week, it is not surprising that

most CJS officials report that delays in case processing occur primarily after arraignment

(i.e., securing a lawyer, deciding on course of action, delaying proceedings).

21

Accordingly, this YCLW project as noted was especially mandated to intervene at the

front-end of the court processing by contacting accused youths and encouraging them to

seek counsel etc even before arraignment if possible. To context the salient issues for the

project, Table A provides data on case processing in youth court in Nova Scotia,

comparing Truro, New Glasgow, HRM and Nova Scotia for each of the past three fiscal

years. The data describe the volume of single and multiple charge cases by average

processing time. Case processing time is the elapsed time, measured in days, to process a

specific case in youth court from the youth’s first court appearance to the date of decision

or sentencing. The definition of a case is identical for each of the three years; it combines

all charges against the same person having common or overlapping dates into a single

case. This definition is considered to better reflect court processing because it groups all

charges against an accused that are being heard simultaneously before the court. Such a

definition would appear to understate recidivism in the conventional sense. The data

made available by the Nova Scotia Department of Justice only provide the marginal

counts for how volume and time are associated, by jurisdiction and year, with single or

multiple charge cases, gender, age at date of offence, age at date of disposition and type

of offence; accordingly, it is not possible to do much analysis.

The table indicates that across all jurisdictions and years, single charge cases were

much less common than multiple charge cases and, not surprisingly, they consistently

have averaged less processing time. Female cases of course have been much fewer than

male cases and usually, but definitely not always, have averaged less court processing

time than male cases across the jurisdictions and years. Considering age at time of

offence, younger (i.e., 12-14 inclusive)youths’ court cases took modestly more days to

process but there was much variation by year and jurisdiction; essentially the same result

held for age at date of disposition though here the modest difference by age was reversed.

Violent offences generally took more court processing time than property and other

offences by jurisdictions and years, the major exception here being New Glasgow where

property offences averaged the most court processing time in all three years.

Interestingly, the ratio of single to multiple charge cases, of male to female cases, and

young to older youth cases remained roughly the same by jurisdiction and year. Violent

22

offences on the other hand generally increased in all jurisdictions over the three year

period. It can be reasonably concluded that cases involving multiple charges, male youth,

and violent offences would be the major contributors to court processing time.

Looking at the table by jurisdiction, the Truro court, despite a modest increase in

volume, has clearly experienced a consistent decline in case processing time for both

single and multiple charge cases, male and female accuseds, and both violent and

property crime. There has been however an increase in elapsed time for processing cases

involving younger youth, an anomaly that might be explained by the increasingly greater

recourse of the Truro court to having assessments of youths completed by the IWK Youth

Forensic Services specialists. In the case of the New Glasgow court, where volume has

remained stable, there is no clear pattern of decline in court processing time over the

three year period with respect to type of case, gender or type of offence but there has

been the same pattern as in Truro of greater processing time for younger youth. It may be

noted too that court processing time for cases of all types has been significantly less in

New Glasgow than in Truro for all three years. As noted below, in interviews with some

CJS officials very knowledgeable about both court milieus, it was mentioned that there

apparently is much more transience among accused youth in the Truro compared to New

Glasgow, a crucial factor apparently in causing court processing delays because of “no

shows”, “can’t locate” and so forth.

The pattern in HRM has been for increasing volume of multiple charge cases,

male cases and violent offences over the three years but no clear pattern of change in the

court processing time associated with these types of cases. In HRM, as in Truro and New

Glasgow, there has been a clear pattern of increased court processing time for cases

involving youths aged 12 to 14. Nova Scotia as a whole essentially followed the patterns

concerning volume and elapsed time by case type as found in the New Glasgow court.

The New Glasgow court, consistently by case type and year, has had the shortest case

processing times. Given the format of the data available for analyses, it is not possible to

examine why case processing time varies between Truro and New Glasgow, whether

explanatory factors be types of offences, proportion of multiple charge cases and / or

23

24

other variables. The common experience in all the court jurisdictions for significantly

increasing elapsed court processing time for the 12 to 14 year old young offenders

strongly points to more focus on getting at the roots of problems whether through seeking

assessments of outside specialists, having case conferencing or other strategies. This in

turn suggests that while reducing court processing time for youths may remain an

important imperative, the courts are at least equally if not more concerned with other

imperatives of the YCJA; as one interviewed judge commented, “there may be good

reasons sometimes to go slow in youth cases and explore the roots of the problems”.

Table A Youth Case Processing in Nova Scotia, 2006 to 2009

LOCATION Truro New Glasgow HRM Nova Scotia

YEARS 06-07 07-08 08-09 06-07 07-08 08-09 06-07 07-08 08-09 06-07 07-08 08-09 VOLUME /

TIME V T V T V T V T V T V T V T V T V T V T V T V T

SINGLE & MULTIPLE CHARGE CASES Single Charge Cases

30 116 34 98 43 93 34 58 36 49 35 74 106 122 86 104 103 144 441 114 487 104 446 118

Multiple Charge Cases

50 204 57 139 74 137 45 87 54 97 56 86 293 142 319 131 352 159 897 147 948 141 901 153

Total Cases 80 171 91 124 117 121 79 75 90 78 91 82 399 137 405 125 455 156 1338 137 1435 128 1347 142 GENDER

Male Youth 61 150 73 127 82 126 53 85 66 74 69 88 322 137 330 130 354 157 1075 133 1138 128 1056 144 Female Youth 19 240 17 120 33 107 26 53 24 88 22 62 67 137 69 107 93 145 249 153 289 128 280 128

Unknown 1 1 2 120 0 0 0 0 10 130 6 82 8 242 14 124 8 65 11 230 AGE AT DATE OF OFFENCE

12-14 11 125 18 147 22 163 16 61 18 71 31 91 92 125 74 139 107 184 302 140 287 132 302 158 15-17 68 175 72 120 94 111 60 81 72 80 59 77 306 140 329 122 346 148 1023 135 1136 127 1035 136 18+ 1 414 1 26 1 106 3 16 0 0 1 87 1 96 1 309 2 60 12 136 10 116 9 177

Unknown 1 1 1 351 2 558 1 357 AGE AT DATE OF DISPOSITION

12-14 7 67 8 92 13 111 11 53 15 66 28 89 62 92 44 119 74 153 188 106 174 109 184 124 15-17 50 123 66 119 80 117 57 75 65 80 56 80 275 130 299 118 305 140 917 129 1010 120 946 132 18+ 23 308 17 157 24 139 11 96 10 84 7 65 62 211 61 169 76 220 232 191 249 172 216 199

Unknown 1 1 1 351 2 558 1 357 VOLUME BY TYPE OF OFFENCE

Violent 17 289 32 179 33 142 15 80 21 69 22 89 160 175 158 153 202 205 384 174 503 164 471 188 Property 40 148 35 113 41 126 40 85 24 73 26 108 90 126 83 117 89 145 525 138 429 126 393 135 Admin.of Justice 4 17 6 106 11 94 2 33 10 90 6 81 47 65 48 101 54 87 105 87 137 98 132 98

Other C.C 9 208 1 7 7 173 7 53 4 79 2 1 29 195 25 171 21 98 118 143 76 127 64 113 C.C. Traffic 3 99 4 92 3 60 0 0 1 48 2 1 10 122 8 125 3 85 29 89 35 97 21 76

Other Federal Statute

7 88 13 46 22 86 15 56 30 85 33 65 63 82 83 82 86 111 177 82 255 83 266 102

Source: Justice Enterprise Information Network (JEIN), Nova Scotia Department of Justice. *Excludes cases that involve bench warrants and/or restorative justice.

25

THE CONTEXT: B: ANALYSES OF DOCKETS

Analyzing the Youth Court Dockets

The dockets were examined to explore what they suggest about the young

offender court population. Youth court dockets were not available before April 29th 2009

because the YCLW project did not receive the letter authorizing their obtaining them, and

prior to arraignment day, via the requested Order in Council until April 14th, 2009. The

first set or package of Truro court dockets available to the evaluator covered the period

April 29th to mid-February 2010. Subsequently, when the project was extended, a second

set of dockets became available, covering the period mi-March to mid-June 2010.

Dockets from the New Glasgow court were apparently only sporadically available to the

YCLW project and in turn to the evaluator. The expectations were that a small number or

proportion of youth would account for the majority of the charges and the prolonged

court cases, and especially generate the majority of administration of justice offences

(e.g., cc145) and breaches (e.g., YCJA 137, failure to comply with a sentence or

disposition, and YCJA 139, breach of an undertaking such as attending school or living at

a specific address). Statistics Canada’s The Daily reported in 2005 that four of every ten

youth cases involved at least one such “secondary” offence.

Examining the First Set of Youth Court Dockets: April 2009 – February 2010

The analysis here has to be taken with caution given the limited time span of the

data and the difficulty of disentangling among arraignment and other phases in the court

process such election and plea, show cause and so forth; also, cases occasionally

vanished completely from the docket record subsequent to arraignment or show cause,

sometimes because of a transfer to another youth court (in the case of Truro, cases

involving Aboriginals from Indian Brook would often be re-assigned to the closer

Shubenacadie court) or perhaps because some dockets were not received (or lost) by the

agency. The data below show that the bulk of the charges and of the court time was

accounted for by roughly fourteen to twenty youths in each of Truro and New Glasgow.

This fits well the so-called “15” model advanced by some knowledgeable CJS experts,

26

namely that roughly that number of young offenders basically account for the lion’s share

of the court business. There are patterns of court activity associated with these youths; a

few cases will illustrate some of the patterns.

Youth A appeared on the first and the last docket in this set. He appeared in the

first available docket – April 29, 2009 – facing a show cause hearing (bail release) on

four charges dealing with assaults and mischief, all apparently related to the same

incident (a presumption based on the consecutive case numbering). On May 4, 2009 he

reappeared for hearings with a total of nine charges, six for election and plea (all the

April 29 charges plus two administration of justice charges). He reappeared on August 5

on thirteen charges, now with four “administration of justice” charges and the other nine

a variety of assaults and other charges; the hearings covered the gamut from show cause

to arraignment to election and plea. On August 11 he appeared for sentencing on six of

the thirteen charges. On August 26 the youth appeared for arraignment on three new

charges (assaults and a cc145). On September 2, the youth returned to court for election

and plea on the August 26 charges but also for sentencing on six charges (mostly

mischief) stretching back to April 29th. On October 21 the youth reappeared for election

and plea on the August 26 charges. On November 4, he reappeared again for election and

plea on the same August 26 charges. On February 8, 2010 the youth appeared for

arraignment on six new charges (consecutive case numbers), all but one a “secondary”

offence, that is an administration of justice charge such as YCJA 137. Over the ten month

period the youth appeared in court on over twenty charges at least half of which were

what we are labeling ‘secondary offences’.

Youth B appeared on the available dockets first on May 25 for an election and

plea hearing on three charges, all YCJA 137. On June 8 she reappeared again for election

and plea on the same set of charges. She reappeared on June 22 and July 6, again for

election and plea on the same three May 25th charges. On September 2, she appeared for

arraignment on two new charges (theft charges) and on October 7 she reappeared for

election and plea on these charges. On November 4 she again appeared for election and

plea on the September 2 charges and, in addition, for arraignment on an administration of

27

justice charge. While the available docket data have many gaps it is apparent that the

young female was a multiple repeat offender chalking up as many “secondary offences”

as criminal code offences.

Youth C first appeared in court in this docket sample on June 8 where he was up

for election and plea on two shoplifting charges (presumably one incident judging by

case numbering). On June 15 he reappeared again for election and plea on the same two

charges. On June 29 the youth appeared for arraignment on two new charges associated

with a break and enter. On August 15 the youth was in court facing a variety of hearings

(status report, election and plea, and arraignment) for the four charges cited above plus

seven administration of justice charges. On September 16 he was back in court for

hearings on five of the above charges plus for arraignment on a new administration of

justice charge. On October 7, the youth returned to court to face a sentencing hearing on

previous charges plus arraignment on a new administration of justice charge. The docket

information available provides no further reference to this youth.

Youth D first appeared in this docket set on May 2 when she was being arraigned

on two charges, namely serious assault (i.e., cc267) and mischief, the case numbering

suggesting that one incident occurred. On May 25, June 8 and July 8, she was on the

docket each time for election and plea on these same two charges. In the July 29 docket,

the youth now faced five charges including three new ones; the earlier charges were set

for election and plea again while the new ones – shoplifting and an administration of

justice offence - for arraignment. On September 30, the young girl was on the docket for

seven charges, facing arraignment on two new administration of justice charges. The last

docket information available on this youth was October 7 when she was on the docket for

an election and plea hearing on all seven charges noted in September.

The twenty youths cited above all were repeat offenders and accumulated a very

high proportion of administration of justice and breach offences. There were three

dominant subtypes. About half had committed a serious offence among their violations, a

serious offence being considered as a major assault (e.g. cc267) or a robbery. The other

28

half could be broken into those who had essentially committed what might be called “life

style” offences such as possession of drugs and LCA offences, and those who continued

– during this limited time period – to commit minor criminal code offenses. Apart from

these twenty youths, there were six youths recorded on the docket as charged with a

single incident of drug possession or an LCA violation, seven youth charged with a single

incident of shoplifting or minor theft, eight youth facing one or two charges solely on

YCJA 137 (breach of disposition), and eight youths docketed on a single criminal code

offence such as common assault, mischief or cc145. There were another eight cases

where the youth was on the docket for what appeared to be a single incident of a possibly

serious offence such as break and enter, weapon offence or an assault with a weapon.

Overall then, an examination of the first set of Truro youth court dockets, limited

as the data were, indicated that about a third of the youths – likely a lower proportion if

the dockets covered a longer time period and were more complete - accounted for the

majority of the charges and certainly for the vast majority of the “secondary” charges

associated with administration of justice and breach offences. The finding is quite

congruent with the estimates of a Truro judge who suggested that 20% of the youth

offenders accounted for 80% of the court time. It should be noted that a significant

minority of the youth were recognized by name by the evaluator as Aboriginal which

meant that the Mi’kmaq court worker took responsibility for working with such youths

and also, that their court appearances could, and did also and often, occur subsequently in

the Shubenacadie court. That would in turn mean that roughly fifteen non-Aboriginal

youths accounted for a very large percentage of all the charges, “secondary” charges and

court time at the Truro youth court. The evidence from scanning the less complete New

Glasgow youth court dockets for the period up to the end of February 2010 essentially

reproduced the above patterns, and the comments of police and court officials there (New

Glasgow) also suggested that a relatively small number of youth, serious and/or repeat

offenders, accounted for most of the court time and skewed the distribution upwards for

court processing time of youth cases. This analysis of the first set of dockets raises the

significant question whether projects such as the YCLW should target first and second

time young offenders or focus on more intensive outreach strategies to work with the

29

much smaller grouping of serious multiple repeat offenders. Effective intervention with

the latter might well produce “a bigger bang for the buck” but as we shall see these same

youth were quite indifferent, if not resistant, to overtures from the YCLW, a pattern

predicted by many justice officials who were interviewed.

Examining the Second Set Youth Court Dockets: mid-March 2009 – mid-June 2010

Table B provide the findings for the analyses of the second set of dockets that

became available to the evaluator when the YCLW project was extended by three

months. It can be seen that in the case of New Glasgow, where the dockets available were

fewer than for Truro, that the total number of youths processed was 64 persons facing

165 charges, of which 70 were administration of justice or “secondary”. A sub-sample of

just 14 youths (22% of the total) accounted for 91 of the 165 charges and 50 of the

“secondary” charges; percentage-wise this small group – the “15” to use the concept

referred to above – accounted for 55% of all the docketed charges and fully 71% of the

administration of justice charges.

Turning to the Truro second set of dockets, the centrality of the “15” concept is

even more evidenced. All four of the youths highlighted in the analysis of the first set of

Truro youth court dockets continue to appear in these second set dockets; indeed over

half the multiple repeat offenders identified earlier reappeared in this second set. As the

Table B shows, for Truro 69 youths faced 443 charges, 173 of which were administration

of justice charges (especially YCJA 137). The “15” grouping consisted of 16 youths who

accounted for 270 or 61% of the charges, and 139 or 80% of all the “secondary” charges.

As an aside, it is interesting that while the numbers of youths processed in court in New

Glasgow and Truro are quite similar, the charges, overall and “secondary” charges, were

considerably greater in Truro. There were more dockets in Truro but the difference in the

number of charges suggests differences in the way the CJS operates in the two milieus as

well as differences perhaps in the characteristics of the young offenders – perhaps there is

greater transience among them, as some CJS officials have contended.

30

Clearly, in both milieus but especially in Truro, a relatively small number of

offenders accounted for the majority of charges as indicated in a simple count of the

dockets, and in particular for a large majority of the administration of justice of

secondary charges, the very focus of the Nunn Inquiry and of the governmental mandate

for the YCLW project. The conclusion stated above for the analyses of the first set of

dockets clearly is underlined in the analyses of the second set of dockets. As we shall see

below, the YCLW project, as conceptualized and implemented, was not able to respond

to the challenge of the “15”.

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TABLE B

YOUTH COURT DOCKET LISTING, CHARGES, 2010 # Youth # Charges # Adm Charges New Glasgow April and May Total 64 165 70 The “15” Sub-total 14 91 50 % of total 22% 55% 71% Truro Late-March to mid- June Total 69 443 173 The “15” Sub-total 16 270 139 % of total 24% 61% 80% *Youth Court dockets made available through YCLW project, 2010

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IMPLEMENTATION: CONTACTING THE CLIENTS

YCLW WORKERS’ STRATEGIES AND CONTACTS

There were three major strategies employed by the YCLW workers in attempting

to make contact with young accused persons in the Truro and New Glasgow areas. The

first was to create and distribute information about the YCLW project and the assistance

being offered through brochures, school notices and presentations, the public media and

even facebook. While such initiatives clearly would be required, in projects such as the

YCLW, to ‘show the flag” as it were and create a general awareness about the project

among youth, parents / guardians, local social service providers and officials in the

criminal justice system (CJS), it is difficult to assess their impact. They were not cited by

CJS interviewees and the three YCLW workers reported that they received no calls from

potential clients traceable to the brochures and related initiatives (e.g., school visits).

Perhaps the most important implication of these activities was that they increased the

knowledge / awareness of the YCLW worker herself about the CJS processes and

possible services beneficial for clients. They also engaged the YCLW worker with CJS

personnel; the brochures, for example, were prepared in discussion with CJS officials and

were revised based on the experience of the YCLW worker. The first YCLW spent much

of her time while in the program working on such materials, creating a manual,

researching kindred initiatives, and having introductory meeting with CJS officials and

others.

In the late winter-early spring of 2009, the second YCLW worker, in addition to

contacting schools, police services and other service providers and preparing and

distributing business cards, brochures and posters, carried out one-on-one interviews with

three parents of youths who had recently been in criminal court and six and eight such

youths in the Truro and New Glasgow areas respectively. She sought to better understand

their court experiences, concerns and needs with respect to the court process, thereby

preparing herself for the contacts to follow. In interviewing these respondents she

adhered quite strictly to the limited mandate of the YCLW role. Analyses of the parent

33

interviews indicated that the parents were engaged in the process and always attended

court sessions. They – even in the one case where the youth went without a lawyer -

claimed to have no problems with the court process or the court officials but did express

some confusion over the packaging of the youth’s multiple charges at court appearances

(i.e., what charges were up for what type of hearing).

The six Truro youths, obtained through probation and restorative justice contacts

and paid for the interview, were with one exception, repeat offenders, two of whom had

been sentenced to custody. They reported a pattern of “no shows” and breaches but no

especial problem with understanding the court process. They expressed regret that they

did not get legal aid prior to first or even second appearance and also that they did not

show up for court appearances and breached probation orders. They indicated that they

had been told and were aware of the consequences of their actions. All reported that their

parents were there for them and that they had at some point accessed restorative justice.

Several acknowledged having had drinking and drug problems and attending ‘addiction”

programs. What was unclear is why they had such problems (i.e., the offences, the “no

shows” and breaches) and what they perceived to be the main issues for themselves and

other repeat young offenders; such questions were not raised in the interview since the

focus was narrowly on their court experience.

The eight youth interviews in the New Glasgow area echoed the themes found in

the Truro interviews. About half the youths were repeat offenders with histories of “no

shows” and breach of undertakings and of probation. Several had been either remanded

or sentenced to Waterville. The repeat offenders typically reported that they had had a

previous restorative justice experience; they also reported that they had alcohol or drug

abuse issues. Again they, and the other youths, almost always indicated that their parents

had been there for them (for example, one youth noted “the PSR helped me because it

showed I had supportive parents”). All the youths had Legal Aid (and were “okay with

it”) but not until after their first or second court appearance. Several complained

themselves of the long waits for their cases to be settled, implicitly shifting the blame to

court procedures. They expressed regret in not securing legal aid faster. A thirteen year

34

old repeat offender also rued, “”It’s not worth getting into trouble. Waterville is not fun.

You can only see your mom once a week if she comes”. The several low-end young

offenders in the grouping – two of whom were yet to be sentenced – followed all the

undertakings, did not miss a court appointment and their chief concern was whether their

record would haunt them in the future.

While it is reasonably to contend that the youths interviewed were not

representative, in their attitudes and family background, of the clients that the YCLW

workers were to encounter, the strategy of doing such preliminary interviews, especially

when the project was not yet getting police referrals, was heuristic. The interviews,

examined in retrospect, were interesting and shed some light on youth case processing.

They generated much puzzlement about the “whys” without shedding much light on the

reasons for the court delays, “no show” and breaches. Not surprisingly, no strategic plan

for the future contacts appears to have been developed based on the interviews.

A second strategy in the project was to obtain an order-in-council in order to

access court dockets and the names and addresses of young accused persons from the

police services so that the targeted clients could be telephoned and the priority focus of

the YCLW – contacting youth prior to their first appearance in court or, better, prior their

contact with Legal Aid – could be pursued. The order-in-council authorization was

obtained in April 2009 and subsequently, at least in Truro, the court dockets regularly

flowed into the YCLW office. The court dockets themselves provided useful though

limited information concerning the names, alleged offences and type of hearing session

of all young accused persons scheduled to appear on the primary youth court sessions

(e.g., in the case of New Glasgow, the docket for the final Tuesday in each month that

was set aside for youth arraignment and election and plea).

While the court dockets helped the YCLW workers prepare for their court visits,

they of course did not provide any information on the youths’ addresses or telephone

numbers. That information had to come from the police services if the primary focus of

the project was to be effectively implemented. Unfortunately, the order-in-council did not

35

immediately persuade the police services to provide that information despite visits from

the YCLW worker. A referral form was created by the YCLW worker (see appendix A)

and sent to the police services. It sought the police services’ providing information on

each youth’s name, age, telephone number and address, appearance date and the name

and contact coordinates for parents/guardians. Only municipal police services in the New

Glasgow area – essentially only the New Glasgow Police Service - began using the

referral form in June 2009 and then basically discontinued its modest use of the form

after several months, reporting that it was an “extra” and deemed to take too much police

time; the officers did advance an alternative in October 2009, namely sending to the

YCLW a version of the restorative justice checklist form which already contained that

information (see below). During the tenure of the second YCLW worker (ending late

August 2009), the RCMP services in the Truro (Bible Hill) and New Glasgow (Pictou)

districts never used the referral form nor did the Truro Police Service. In the latter case,

the police service considered several specific requests from the YCLW pursuant to the

order-in-council but rejected use of the form on the grounds that to provide names and

addresses could be considered to be a violation of the YCJA.

In the fall of 2009 few referrals trickled in from the RCMP in the New Glasgow

area (unfortunately several of these few referrals were for youths who already had

obtained Legal Aid and were making a second or third court appearance, thus falling

outside the perceived mandate of the YCLW) and from the New Glasgow municipal

police services. Most importantly, beginning in mid-October, the YCLW project began

receiving referrals from the Truro Police Service which, in recent years, has generally

accounted for 70% of the court cases in the Truro youth court. The number of referrals

remained quite modest up to late January 2010 – just a dozen or so in total from the

police services in the New Glasgow area between September 2009 and late January 2010

(one municipal police officer reported that “the court docket is not that big anymore”)

and slightly more from the Truro area (all from the Truro Police Service). In late January

2010, following up on some officers’ suggestion, the conventional restorative justice

checklist form was adapted to facilitate police referrals to the YCLW project, essentially

adding a line for police services to simply check off and thereby direct the form to the

36

YCLW project (see appendix B). This new user-friendly format and a special February

information session with the RCMP in Bible Hill raised hopes and expectations for the

YCLW program but unfortunately these were not realized in the final scheduled two

months of the project or in its brief extension. While the Truro Police Service contributed

its regular handful of referrals, the New Glasgow police referrals fell off completely and

the RCMP referrals remained non-existent; indeed over the whole two years of the

project only one referral form was received form was received from the RCMP in the

Truro area.

The YCLW and Client Interaction

Securing names and contact coordinates for clients of course is simply the first

necessary step to communicating with the youths and/or their parents. As researchers

working with all branches of the CJS appreciate, the phone numbers for alleged offenders

are often not valid for a variety of reasons (e.g., disconnected service, wrong number) and

the “official” caller does not often get called back when a message is left; moreover,

when one does reach the youth client, the response is often perfunctory at best nor may

the response of the parent /guardian, clearly the secondary ‘client’ in the YCLW protocol,

be more receptive. The YCLW worker usually would attempt to communicate with the

parent / guardian if the youth was unavailable and sometimes the contacted youth would

simply pass over the telephone to the parent rather than have a meaningful conversation

with the YCLW worker. Typically, the YCLW worker would also send out, via the post,

pertinent materials on the project and the court processes to the client’s address but here

too there were frequent returns for invalid addresses.

The above implementation realities certainly had two major consequences,

namely severely limiting the number of meaningful contacts that the YCLW workers

could achieve (see below), and creating much frustration among them regarding the

achievement of their goals. In numerous conversations with the YCLW workers since

January 2009, the evaluator found this frustration by the dedicated workers to be quite

37

palpable. The YCLW workers were committed to their tasks but boxed-in by the

combination of limited mandate and weak embeddedness in the criminal justice system.

The third YCLW strategy for contact was to be at the courthouse on days devoted

to arraignment and election and plea of the alleged young offenders. This too, as

researchers know, can generate much frustration as it is not a milieu conducive to a

meaningful chat with an accused offender by an ‘outsider’ whose role would largely be

unclear to the youth and the parent / guardian. As one YCLW worker commented, “You

have to cajole the youth outside the courtroom”. She observed, too, that youths at the

courthouse, mulling around in the corridor, may not want to appear needy of help before

their friends, and youths who are repeat offenders appeared usually to have little interest

in the service offered and are into the “defer, defer” mode. The parents – reportedly a

significant number of youths did not have a parent / guardian with them in court though

in such cases they would have their Legal Aid counsel - also were difficult to engage at

the courthouse and some seem peeved that they even had to be there. The YCLW

workers did not indicate whether the judges pointed them out in court and referred to

their services available for the young accused but the presumption here is that they did

not. The YCLW workers, all operating out of the Truro Restorative Justice agency’s

office, did attend almost all the Truro youth court sessions but only a handful of the New

Glasgow sessions. The third YCLW worker reported that in the later months of the

project she was beginning to establish a relationship with some of the youths at the Truro

court.

As the court workers in Halifax and in the Mi’kmaq MLSN commented, such a

comfort level for communication, especially at the courthouse, takes time, requires

becoming part of the milieu and / or having a special initial connection with the potential

clients (e.g., being “one of them” in the case of the Mi’kmaq court workers). The Truro

court did allow for the YCLW worker to use an office on-site on a temporary basis but it

was of marginal value with respect to communicating with youths or parents / guardians.

The limited mandate of the YCLW role was generally interpreted by the workers as not

following the client or parent / guardian once Legal Aid became involved with the client;

38

indeed, one YCLW worker commented that “once the youth is with legal aid, there is

little point in being there and indeed it may be unwise since there may be a conflict with

the defence counsel role”. Such a position undoubtedly increased frustration in the sense

that the focus was then virtually entirely on the “arrest to Legal Aid certification” phase

so the referrals from police services and courthouse contacts on youths’ first appearance

would have been pivotal.

Overall, then, clearly the strategies of implementation for establishing contacts

with young clients have been problematic, primarily because, as one YCLW worker

observed “if the YCLW is to work, the worker has to be more a part of the whole CJS

and she isn’t”. Such embeddedness is hard to achieve in a very limited time frame, with a

very limited mandate, and where there is significant turnover in the position. It appears

too, in retrospect, that more development of the themes to be explicitly explored in the

communication with the youth and / or parent (e.g., exploring the restorative justice

option or asking about any interest in specific programs) may have had some value in

drawing out the other party. At the same time, at the scheduled end of the project there

were grounds for thinking that the pieces were on the verge of falling into place. An

effective referral format has been established which was user-friendly. Meetings with the

police services had created some positive sentiments reflecting possibly greater

collaboration. Also, there was greater awareness that the YCLW project had to take on a

more robust mandate and not limit itself to encouraging the young offender to quickly

seek legal aid. As the Truro police officer most actively engaged in the YCLW project

commented, “If it [the YCLW project] were to shut down, based on the situation to date,

the project would have had little impact from a police point of view but it should get an

extension since it is important to give it a good test”. He went on to identify particular

problem-youths with mental health and drug issues as youths that the YCLW might focus

upon. Indeed, in the course of implementation, the project staff identified key social

services (e.g., the Group Homes, Children’s Aid) and personnel (e.g., usually well-

informed school liaison officers, whether RCMP or Municipal) to relate to in a more

robust YCLW initiative. Also, the value of discussing the situation with the youth in

person and outside the courthouse where they are not in front of their friends was

39

suggested by several CJS officials in the advisory group meetings. Unfortunately the

short extension turned out to be more like a death knell and not a revitalization as all

parties saw little reason to increase – or, in some instances to maintain, - their investment

in a project that would soon end.

The Detailed YCLW – Client Write-Ups

The evaluator examined the written-up contact files established by the YCLW

workers. Undoubtedly there were more casual encounters at the courthouse but these files

provide a good glimpse at the issues associated with carrying out the essential tasks of the

YCLW role.

The second YCLW worker, in place between January and August 2009, began to

receive referrals in late June 2009. All but two of her total fifteen referrals came from the

New Glasgow Police Service. There were no referrals from the RCMP in either the New

Glasgow or Truro areas and none from the Truro Police Service. One client was secured

at the courthouse while others contacted there did not take up her offer of assistance. The

YCLW worker was unable to contact by telephone seven (about half) of the referred

youths though there were some courtroom observations made in a few of these instances,

as there was with respect to non-referred youths. Where the youth was reached by

telephone, the interaction was usually very brief, either the youth informing the YCLW

worker that he / she had an appointment with Legal Aid or intended to schedule an

appointment. Typically, the YCLW worker encouraged the person to pursue Legal Aid

certification, cautioned the youth about the importance of showing up for court

appointments, and offered assistance if required. Subsequently, material was posted to the

youth’s address. In several instances the communication was more substantial, involving

several phone calls, virtually always initiated by the YCLW worker, and the latter

explored social services and programs that might benefit the youth even while the case

was proceeding through the court system. For example, in one instance the YCLW

worker met with a young girl and her social worker several times to discuss the pending

40

court case and the possibilities of going to restorative justice, clarifying some aspects of

that program for both parties as well as for the girl’s mother; the girl had some mental

challenges and had misinterpreted the way restorative justice operated. In two other

instances the YCLW worker reached the youths by telephone and discussed the pending

court case with them, subsequently becoming involved with the mothers in identifying

possible local treatment programs and / or ‘navigating” the youth between restorative

justice and the court system. In these instances the parent / guardian “took over” the

interaction (e.g., contacted the YCLW, answered the phone in the youth’s absence) with

the YCLW worker and there was no further direct contact with the youth. The YCLW

worker also observed that in several cases the contacted youth who refused her services –

she invariably did mention the importance of quickly getting legal aid and later sent an

information package to the residence – either was a “no-show” on appearance date or

attended with a parent but no lawyer, and pleaded guilty.

The third YCLW worker assumed the position in September 2009. Between

September 10, 2009 and mid-January 2010, there were twelve referrals received from the

New Glasgow area; the police used the referral form developed by the previous YCLW

worker. The file information dealt only with contacts or attempted contacts with the

youths via the telephone and the content largely entailed the YCLW worker advising the

youths or the parent/guardian concerning getting in touch with Legal Aid as soon as

possible and the reasons why that was in the youth’s best interests. Despite repeated

calls, leaving messages and searching for alternate numbers when the given phone

number was not in service, only three youths were ever directly contacted. The contacted

youths either had linked up with Legal Aid and had no concerns or issues to raise with

the YCLW worker or were encouraged over several repeat calls to make an appointment;

no other issues apparently were raised when the YCLW worker inquired about being of

further assistance. In several instances the youth was under the supervision of Children’s

Aid and, despite the YCLW worker leaving a message, there was no return call from that

agency. In several other instances the YCLW worker reached a parent who reported that

the youth had or was arranging an appointment with Legal Aid and that ended the

conversation. One significant problem among the dozen police referrals was that they

41

sometimes reached the YCLW after the youth had made his or her first appearance in

court. Whether the contact was with youth or parent, the communication focus was

almost exclusively on whether or not the youth had Legal Aid and the implications for

the youth of not having it. Aside from the police referrals, as in the case of previous

YCLW worker, there was apparently very limited contact established with the youths at

the courthouse. Overall, then, five themes stand out, namely (a) the difficulty of

contacting youth – they move around plus do not return calls; (b) the limited mandate of

the YCLW – if the youth had legal aid counsel or an appointment, then that was basically

the end of the communication; (c) sometimes the YCLW received the referrals from

police after the youth had made a first court appearance on the matter; (d) a good

networking linkage had not been established with Children’s Aid or the Bridges service;

(e) there was little significant contact with young, accused persons at the courthouse.

The YCLW worker had better success in the Truro milieu, in part it would appear

since she spent more time there and became more known by others and more comfortable

in approaching youths. Between mid-October 2009 and the end of January 2010 the

YCLW worker received at least eighteen referrals from the Truro Police Service though

the YCLW project continued to receive none from the RCMP service in the area. A

bonus in the Truro police referrals was that the sergeant also wrote in the appearance date

for each of the accused youths on the referral form. Direct contact was established with

roughly half of the youths though only half of these contacted youth expressed more than

minimal interest in the conversation and the encouragement and assistance offered by the

YCLW worker. The latter concluded that repeat offenders were generally indifferent to

her offer and advice which essentially was limited to issues concerning Legal Aid and

representation in court. Somewhat surprisingly, few parents proved accessible by phone

and in two of the three cases where contact was made, the communication was again

minimal. No file information was available on courthouse contacts and it is presumed

that such contacts did not lead to any meaningful communications between accused

youths and the YCLW worker. Almost one quarter of the youths were Aboriginal and in

these instances the court information on the youth was faxed to the MLSN court worker.

42

The same five themes noted above would apply to the Truro area experience of the

YCLW worker, save there was more YCLW presence at the courthouse..

43

THE VIEWS OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM OFFICIALS: NEW

GLASGOW

Interviews, one-on-one, with New Glasgow area officials in the criminal justice

field included police (several officers), crown prosecutor, defence counsel, probation

official, court administrator and judge. In addition, there was contact at several advisory

committee meeting with police officers, the MLSN court worker and the restorative

justice director for the New Glasgow John Howard Society. The minutes of all the

advisory group meetings were perused to elaborate on the interview data where possible.

There were five main themes that ran through all the interviews. First, no one

considered that the issue of case processing time was more problematic and significant

among youth than among adults and indeed only one person considered it even to be of

equal concern. Secondly, that being said, the respondents all did highlight the same

problematic area for youth case processing, namely the length of time between arrest and

the youth securing the assistance of Legal Aid. Thirdly, the respondents did acknowledge

that, while the intervention of the YCLW worker during that interval could be valuable in

many respects, such as assisting in the youth’s getting hooked up with Legal Aid, and

informing youths and their parents / guardians about the justice process and the

importance of adhering to it and having representation, there would be challenges for the

YCLW person’s effective performance, such as timely access of the youth’s valid

“contact coordinates”. Fourthly, all the respondents held that the YCLW could make a

significant contribution in a more holistic sense, namely linking up the youth and parent /

guardian to supportive local service programs, becoming a source of information, on the

whereabouts among other things, of the accused youths for the justice officials, and

keeping an open file on the youth throughout his or her progression through the entire

court processing period (i.e., staying with the clients and not terminating involvement

once the youth has been “hooked up” with NSLA). Fifthly, most officials considered that

the best ‘home’ for the YCLW position would be the more neutral restorative justice

agency given the inherent adversarial feature of the criminal justice system.

44

One official, intimately engaged in creating the court docket, suggested the

crucial area for reducing the time in youth case processing would be “making the Legal

Aid appointment and becoming certified for Legal Aid” but cautioned that, based on

personal experience, police referrals to the YCLW (the basis on which the YCLW could

most timely assist with such tasks) would probably be minimal, especially from the

RCMP. Both cautions proved very accurate as the municipal police did not send any

referrals until June 2009 and the RCMP none until October; neither police service has

sent many referrals up to February 2010 and virtually none since. It was suggested by the

official that the biggest benefit of the YCLW role player might be attending court,

offering assistance to the youth’s securing Legal Aid and providing the youths and their

parents/guardians information about relevant local services. Other officials basically

reiterated these positions. A judge indicated that he did not foresee any impact of the

YCLW in reducing the two weeks it may take to go from police arrest to the swearing of

the information nor on the six weeks, on average, that it takes to secure a pre-sentence

report (PSR), but he allowed that there could be an impact for reducing case processing

time if the YCLW person was an agent or helper of Legal Aid (here he commented that

there is no duty counsel in the New Glasgow court and Legal Aid is busy). Even more

than the above respondent, the judge considered that a more holistic role for the YCLW

could be very helpful. Here he referred to getting information to parents / guardians,

identifying beneficial local services and programs for the youth, and participating in

special, post-PSR conferences, encouraged by the YCJA, to get at the deeper issues of

serious and repeat young offenders.

The Legal Aid respondent (a former crown prosecutor in the same area) agreed

that the YCLW role could possibly speed up the youths’ making an appointment with

Legal Aid and preparing the information required for Legal Aid certification. He noted

though that, while on average it may take three weeks to get an appointment with Legal

Aid, the organization responds much faster if the youth is deemed to be “high-risk”;

accordingly, if there was YCLW activity engaged in developing some standard test to

determine risk level and identify the high-risk youths, then that might speed up case

processing in a very meaningful way. The respondent also observed that the youth court

45

sits for arraignment only once a month (the last Tuesday of the month) so that factor

alone contributes to longer case processing. The Legal Aid official also saw some value

in the YCLW person’s contacting and informing parents (Legal Aid sees its client as the

youth and there is a quite limited role for and interaction with parents / guardians) and in

connecting the youth to local services especially at the pre-probation stage.

Two police respondents gave common views on the YCLW initiative. They did

not think that there was much difference between youth and adult court processing times,

holding that a previous judge had developed a strict policy on a three month turn-around

time for cases. There was the view that the YCLW initiative would not impact on the

time between police arresting a person and their swearing the information since “we’re

already quite fast”. However, the main contribution of the YCLW in quickening up the

case processing would be to help first and second time young offenders to get an

appointment and subsequent certification with Legal Aid (e.g., informing them of what

one needs to bring to Legal Aid offices). Targeting the youths who need and are willing

to accept the YCLW’s assistance was considered the priority. Police also saw usefulness

of the YCLW – if the person had know-how and experience – in responding to the

questions of parents / guardians and in helping youth and parent become involved in

accessible local services and programs throughout the court process. Here it was noted

that many youths do not understand the charges and other aspects of their being charged

so an informed YCLW person could help a lot prior to the youth’s first appearance in

court; similarly, the officers noted that while parents / guardians do get invited down to

the police station to be informed about the arrest and the subsequent processes entailed,

they receive very limited information and virtually nothing on accessible, relevant social

services and programs. The officers commented that the order-in-council accorded to the

YCLW project meant that the project could access court dockets from court

administration and that the YCLW could secure names and addresses via the restorative

justice forms sent to their home agency, but when pressed, acknowledged that that

recourse was of limited value since police departments usually do not send such forms to

the restorative justice agency when the youth is headed to court rather than to restorative

justice.

46

A probation official argued that the delays in court processing lay largely in the

going from arrest to having an appointment with Legal Aid and that the strategy for the

YCLW should be “keep close to the police departments, getting the names and addresses

of accused youth from police and contacting the youths and their parents / guardians”, in

that way streamlining the next steps in the court process (i.e., appointments and

certifications with Legal Aid). Unlike the other respondents, he did not highlight any

more elaborate role for the YCLW nor did he indicate any particular value in the YCLW

person contributing to youth conferences under the YCJA or providing in-depth

knowledge of accessible community resources; in general, he did not think that the

YCLW role player would have the kind of sophisticated engagement or knowledge to

carry out such tasks well.

In responding to the question of where such a service as the YCLW should be

embedded were it to be continued, there was consensus that it should not be in court

administration. Some respondents leaned to “close to the police” and others “close to

Legal Aid” but overall, there was a consensus view that there would be a good fit to the

restorative justice agency. The Legal Aid respondent echoed the views of the senior

NSLA official cited above, namely that housing the YCLW with court administration

would be inappropriate since “it is already more identified with the crown than with the

defence”; further, housing the YCLW with Legal Aid could complicate the lawyer-client

relationship if the YCLW informed the court on contact information or aggressively

pursued the young accused person’s collaboration with court processing policies.

In sum, then, there was much , though not complete, consensus among the New

Glasgow CJS officials concerning the possibilities of effective intervention in crime

prevention and case processing that might be achieved through the YCLW program.

Despite the quite modest actual collaboration with respect to sending referrals to the

YCLW and in attending the advisory group meetings for that area, the CJS respondents

did acknowledge that the program could make a difference if well implemented.

Typically the respondents held that a more robust mandate should be pursued. For

example, at one advisory group session near the scheduled conclusion of the project, all

47

those present –police representatives from both the RCMP and the NGPS, the RJ agency

coordinator, the MLSN representative – advanced the view that the YCLW worker

should be active with cases throughout the court process and not “cut out” when NSLA

has been contacted by the youth. As well, all but one of the respondents suggested that

best value for the role could be garnered if it had a more holistic character, combining

liaison with outreach and working with youths (especially what we have been labeling

“the 15”) and parents, navigating them to potentially helpful community services. The

only person who did not support such an approach, did not primarily because he

considered the YCLW project to be too limited in terms of its life-span and worker

expertise.

THE VIEWS OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM OFFICIALS: TRURO

Interviews, one-on-one, with Truro area officials in the criminal justice field

included police (several interviews), two crown prosecutor (email plus), three Legal Aid

counsel, probation official, court administrator and two judges. In addition, there was

contact at six advisory committee meetings with police officers, the MLSN court worker

crown prosecutors, NSLA lawyers and the restorative justice director for the John

Howard Society. The minutes of the advisory group meetings were perused to elaborate

on the interview data where possible. An additional round of interviews with CJS

officials also was completed after the project was concluded. The same five themes that

emerged from the New Glasgow interviews are found throughout the analyses detailed

below, namely, the overall manageability of the case processing times for youth, the

importance of zeroing in on the pre-Legal Aid phase for improving case processing time,

the challenges that this emphasis would have for the YCLW program (e.g., getting the

requisite information and making contact with youth), the value of a more holistic thrust

by the YCLW, and the wisdom of housing the program with the Truro restorative justice

agency. Additionally, among the Truro criminal justice system officials, there was much

48

emphasis on the YCLW focusing upon “the 15”, the minority of offenders who are

serious repeat offenders, on the YCLW worker as a “friend of the court” navigator for

the youth’s case throughout the entire case processing, on the engagement with parents

and guardians, and on the need for an in-depth, organizationally-based knowledge by the

YCLW program concerning how the court works and what resources are available for the

youths and their parents at the community level.

The two crown prosecutors did not express the view that there was a serious

problem with the timely processing of young offenders in their area. One, contending that

there was no especial delay in youth court processing, wrote “Quite frankly I have not

seen much difference in the procedure employed and, other than the realities of the young

person obtaining counsel, youth matters have always been dealt with rather

expeditiously”. Both respondents saw value-added in a role for the YCLW worker as a

“friend of the court”, not as an advocate. One prosecutor commented, “an YCLW worker

would be an important resource for the court and all of the stakeholders … framed as one

which is insulated (where possible) from the inherent adversarial relationship of Crown

and Defense”. She went on to note that, presumably as housed in an organization such as

the restorative justice agency, it is consistent with the YCJA view of “downloading

significant responsibility to the community”. The other crown suggested that there should

be an emphasis in the YCLW on the whys of delay, not so much the delay itself. She

wrote that a key function of the YCLW worker would be “getting them (youth) in touch

with the right people (i.e., defence) and communicating with the parents - obviously that

cannot be the role of the Crown. Finally, one crown agreed with the interviewer’s

comment about an equity issue in having such a YCLW service outside the two large

urban centres in Nova Scotia; she commented that “Justice and Corrections should be

alive to issues of systemic inequities when metro and Sydney have access to services that

are simply unavailable to other youth in the province”.

A senior court administration official reported that she did not perceive any

special problem with youth case processing. She explained that police come in and swear

to the information which is immediately imputed into the JEIN data system and then they

49

usually provide a copy to the Crown in the same building. The police also pick the court

date not the court administrator. She has not noticed any large number of people coming

into the office to complain about procedure or process but if they did, they would be

directed to Legal Aid or the Public Prosecution Service. She saw the YCLW initiative as

having minimal implication for her office but welcomed “another referral source that

could explain the criminal court process for both parents and youth”, especially given the

Legal Aid protocol regarding talking with the youth-client not the parents. She, too,

implied that embedding the YCLW in the restorative justice agency was quite

appropriate.

The two judges interviewed both held that, though it could be improved, case

processing time for youth was no great problem especially in comparison with that of

adults. The judges also zeroed in on ‘structural’ limitations associated with the YCLW

role. One judge observed that if the project’s success hinged on referrals from the police

there could be problems since in his experience the police have been notorious in not

submitting restorative justice forms to the Crown’s office as they are supposedly required

to do. The other judge commented that delays in youth case processing are primarily due

to delays in scheduling legal aid appointments and certification which may be beyond the

reach of the YCLW worker. Both judges considered that the YCLW could be quite

beneficial to all parties. One judge saw its value-added as a kind of navigator for the

youth as the case winds between police, prosecutor and restorative justice, and also as

keeping track of - keeping in touch with -the youth as he or she is going through all the

criminal justice phases; here he commented that “there is much transience among some

youth (especially the repeaters) and seemingly chaotic family living arrangements so

even their defence counsel loses track of them”. This particular possible function of the

YCLW program mirrors one of the key benefits CJS officials elsewhere have identified

with the HRM and MLSN court worker programs.

The other judge saw the role’s value more as problem-solving and considered that

the challenge for the YCLW was that, while there is a need for such a role, it requires “a

strong organizational resource” so that knowledge is retained, the nuances of the work are

50

appreciated and there is a keen awareness of the different contexts (here he noted how

different the prosecution service and probation are in the different locales of Truro, New

Glasgow and Amherst). In his view the YCLW should focus on problem-solving at one

or all of the three key nodal points in the criminal process, namely communicating with

police officers in the “arrest to swearing-the-information” phase (i.e., the YCLW worker

getting appropriate information and starting the intervention), the period leading up to

Legal Aid being secured, and, thirdly, facilitating the pre-sentence report; at all three

phases he considered that there could be significant reduction in case processing times.

The key in his view was for the YCLW to focus perhaps on a particular nodal point and

use energies wisely in determining where the role might make its biggest contribution.

This required in his view “the right person, perhaps a retired, experienced person” and he

was skeptical that that was the case here, noting of the YCLW worker that “She is young

and by the time she learns the ropes, probably gone” so the project probably will be a

waste of time.

The judges pointed out the heavy proportion of court time spent dealing with a

small number of young repeat offenders who, as noted above, generate considerable

problems for the court. One judge observed that often these youths come from the same

two or three geographical areas in Truro and while making up roughly 20% of the youths

being court processed, they “account for 80% of my time”. He emphasized the

importance of obtaining adequate funds to get in-depth IWK assessments for these

serious cases and considered that if the YCLW cannot assist in dealing with the serious

repeat offender – and he doubted it could – then the money might be better spent on these

assessments. The judges also saw a valuable role for the YCLW person in working with

parents, connecting them to programs and services such as the IWK outreach program.

The judges alluded, too, to the equity issue, calling attention to the absence of youth court

liaison roles, whether by police services or Legal Aid, in the Truro area compared to

HRM. Both judges were well aware of the Mi’kmaq MLSN program for Aboriginal

young offenders and appreciated that it operated under a different mandate, constitutional

and policy-wise, that ensured its sustainability. The judges also appreciated the

51

appropriateness of the YCLW as “a friend of the court” being embedded in the John

Howard Restorative Justice Society.

The three Legal Aid respondents, commenting through interview and / or the

Truro advisory committee, suggested that the YCLW worker could make a valuable

contribution to the processing of youth cases, as a “neutral” role player facilitating the

youth’s timely collaboration with the court processing, including of course Legal Aid.

One respondent noted that if the YCLW person was too closely connected with the court,

informing officials as to what the youth did or did not do, then he or she could lose the

trust of the youth and become inconsequential. On the other hand, the other respondent

emphasized that the YCLW worker – somewhat like the MLSN court worker in his view

– might play an aggressive role with youths who for one reason or another are not

showing up for court or for their Legal Aid appointments. He appreciated that unlike the

MLSN counterpart, it would be very difficult for the YCLW worker to play the role of

cultural mentor and “shamer”, but an experienced, empathetic YCLW worker, not

perceived by the youth as a court official, might be successful. For Legal Aid “the 15”,

that minority of young accused persons – prolific offenders who ignored the rules and

procedures – should be a priority focus of the YCLW program. Such an YCLW role,

housed in the more “neutral” restorative justice agency, could benefit all court role

players, certainly enabling Legal Aid to maintain its role as an untarnished advocate for

the youth while facilitating the progression of the case through the court system.

One of the interviewed Legal Aid lawyer readily identified the problem of

speedier youth case processing as occurring at the phase between being arrested and

charged and securing Legal Aid assistance. While vague about whether the problem was

generalized or focused around a small number of prolific and / or seemingly indifferent

young offenders, he did not think there were significant delays at the phases of “arrest to

swearing the information,” or at “completing the PSR”, or even subsequent to first

appearance. To that extent then, his sense of where the problem was matched up well

with the way the limited mandate of the YCLW program was implemented by the YCLW

workers. Not surprisingly, he expressed mild surprise that up to the time of the summer

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interview no police service in the Truro area had sent any referrals to the YCLW such

that it could contact accused youths prior to first appearance. The respondent also noted

that a major trend impacting on caseload and case processing issues in the area will

continue to be the declining population outside metropolitan Halifax and the correlated

declining caseload for the courts and for restorative justice. Such a trend could facilitate a

focus on the prolific or indifferent offender.

The Legal Aid lawyers also believed that the YCLW worker could be of value in

communicating with the parents / guardians of the youth, underlining their own

responsibility to focus on the youth. It was appreciated that were the YCLW worker

steeped in knowledge of local services and programs that the youth and even the parents

could access as the youth’s case was winding its way through court processing, there

could be value-added at case conferencing and pre-sentencing (to some degree that

assumption underlays the perceived value of the MLSN court worker since mainstream

officials may have little confidence in their own knowledge of reserve life). At the same

time, the respondent was quick to comment that the Legal Aid lawyer in mainstream

cases would frequently have a better knowledge of what might be relevant and helpful to

the client. One NSLA respondent continued on this theme by observing that sometimes

he will want a deferral of trial / sentencing so that the client can build up some credibility

and “stars” by enrolling in a program or doing some specific thing that exemplifies

remorse and / or a willingness to change. Finally, the respondents did acknowledge the

value of collaboration with the YCLW worker; for example, one respondent noted that,

since the YCLW project , in order to speed up the youths’ access to legal aid, the office

staff has been instructed to provide the appropriate forms to the youths without waiting

on certain information being filed such as income (he observed that in almost twenty

years of legal aid work, only once did he come across a case where the youth had an

income level beyond the cut-off point for Legal Aid eligibility).

There were several interviews with the key senior Truro police officer who liaised

with the YCLW program. In his view there was no especial overall problem concerning

the timeliness of processing youth cases and, further, he observed that some delay can be

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constructive - “time can allow for a cooling of emotion and more rational thinking”. He

pointed out that Truro police swear an information within two weeks of arrest and within

a week for serious youth offences. He also held that the Truro court was “not inundated”

with young offenders. Several problems were identified however, namely (a) youths not

following through on their undertakings, a frustrating issue for the police he argued since

the police cannot be aggressive with the youths, and at the same time the Crown and the

Court seem ambivalent about the importance of a violation of an undertaking issued by

the police; (b) the other major processing problem is a youth being charged with another

offence before the initial one is resolved in court (common among more prolific young

offenders). The officer considered that the YCLW worker could be of much benefit to the

police, court and the youth in working with the youths and the parents / guardians to

minimize these problems. The parents for a variety of reasons often are reluctant to phone

the police to report an undertaking being violated but perhaps the YCLW worker could

play a role here.

Additionally, the police respondent believed that a second value-added facet of

the YCLW program could be to inform – and encourage participation in - the youths and

parents about local programs and services that could make a positive difference for them

at every phase of the court processing and beyond. In his view, for a small number of

prolific young offenders, the parents / guardians complain that the youth is “outta

control”. In his view, for the YCLW worker to be successful in this and the above

problem he or she would have to be well-skilled, have experience in relating to the youths

and court role players and be well-informed about supportive services and programs in

the area. Significantly, in the fall of 2009, after the Truro Police Service long refused to

release the names, addresses and phone numbers of young accused persons for whom an

information was laid on the grounds that it was inappropriate under the imperatives of the

YCJA, this service - and this senior officer - has been by far the major source of referrals

for the YCLW program.

The YCLW project was discussed with the area probation officer on several

occasions both in a one-on-one interview and at advisory committee meetings. He

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identified two major groupings, namely (a) the first or second time offenders who

generate few problems, most especially a lack of knowledge about the criminal court

process, and (b) the serious repeaters who constitute roughly one-third or less of his

youth caseload (typically fifty active files, only a few of whom are female). Most of these

repeaters “have had a crack at restorative justice” too and their experience in court is such

that they know a little about the court process and can postpone and postpone if they

think they are going to be sentenced to Waterville. The young offenders, especially the

repeaters, come disproportionately from the trailer parks and the low rent apartment

complexes and they come alone to their PSR session. The probation officer does his own

PSRs which facilitates his understanding of the youth and his or her milieu and which he

finds helpful in court. There are few minority youth on his caseload, less than a handful

of either African Nova Scotians or of Aboriginals.

The probation official clearly welcomed the YCLW initiative and emphasized the

importance of the YCLW worker being at the courthouse and getting familiar with the

two types of young offenders and embedding herself in the court milieu. He had praise

for the workers’ efforts to date and appreciated that perhaps their being female might

enable them to be more effective as a YCLW worker since “it might not bring out the

repeat offenders’ resistance to authority”; at the same time, noting their apparently

different socio-economic background and unfamiliarity with the youth court scene, he

saw the challenge of their avoiding being like a lamb to the wolves (i.e., “the 15” or the

repeat serious offenders). In effect, he saw value-added in the YCLW worker being like a

“navigator’ being with the youth’s case throughout the entire court process. He did not

identify the delays prior to securing legal aid as more problematic than delays at the PSR

level. The respondent saw a major role for the YCLW worker in connecting with parents

and guardians as well since their understanding of the court process and related issues has

often been very limited. He suggested strategies for the YCLW worker such as

connecting the parents and entire family with the Family Resource Centre and other local

service and programs. From his vantage point as probation officer, the key indicators for

success for the YCLW initiative could include fewer delays and “no shows” in

completing the PSR and youths / parents better informed about the criminal court

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process. The respondent appreciated the arguments for and against a full-time YCLW

worker in the area (i.e., need and equity versus there being only a small population) and

suggested that having the person do other tasks as well in the restorative justice agency

would make it more feasible for governmental funding. Somewhat surprisingly, despite

the respondent’s support for the YCLW program and presence at several advisory group

meetings, and despite the previous collaboration with the RJ agency managing the

YCLW project on a non-dissimilar project (e.g., Working Together 2004), the probation

office referred no youth on pre-breaches or otherwise to the YCLW during its two year

life-span; the primary reason for this anomaly appears to have been the very narrow

implementation of the YCLW mandate, basically causing the YCLW worker to focus

almost exclusively on the “front-end” issue of encouraging quick engagement of youth

with NSLA.

Interviews with the CJS officials subsequent to the conclusion of the YCLW

project reiterated their viewpoints as described above. They held that indeed the YCLW

project needed to have had a more robust mandate, that the YCLW worker should be

engaged with the youth throughout the court processing, especially the multiple repeat

offenders who run up most of the “secondary” administration of justice charges (i.e.,

violation of undertakings, bails, no-shows and so forth). Clearly, too, they saw the ideal

role as a combination of liaison vis-à-vis the CJS and outreach worker in linking the

youth and parent to local community services. Both PPS and NSLA respondents stressed

the need, indeed the equity imperative for crime prevention and CJS efficiency /

effectiveness outside the metropolitan area, for such a coordinative role embedded in the

RJ agency – and enthused about the concept of a “ youth outreach worker”, combining

CJS liaison and outreach services. One elaborated that ideally the occupant of such a role

should also be an experienced person (analogous perhaps to the “youth intervention

outreach workers” employed by Community and Correctional Services, PEI). The

judicial respondent shared the view that there is a need for more coordination and

working with youth and in fact that need, he believed, will increase imminently because

of pending changes in court system and NSLA policy. He considered that the YCLW

project had no impact partly because of its limited life span (“I and others did not invest

in it since we were thinking it would not last long and it didn’t”) and partly because of its

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limited mandate. He appreciated the challenge of getting the targeted youth (“the 15”) to

meet with the youth worker but considered that court undertakings can be put forth by the

crown as a condition of bail etc so “that is no big deal” (he added that having police

advance such undertakings would be more complicated legally and subject to more

challenges).

These CJS views dovetailed well with the wrap-up assessments of the YCLW

worker and host RJ agency directors who appreciated the need to effect more of an

outreach approach that focused on the multiple repeat offenders, the CJS and the

community, and discussed at length how to engage such youth (e.g., pay them to attend

conferences a la Pathways?, have the court compel them to attend as part of their

undertakings?).

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS Key Assessment Points The main themes that have emerged from this assessment are

1. The YCLW project was based on a well-conceived proposal that laid out a

clear set of objectives and plan of action to meet some of the central problems in processing youth court cases as highlighted by the Nunn Report and further specified by the special review of Nunn Inquiry Recommendations within the Nova Scotia Department of Justice.

2. The operational mandate was however much narrower and handcuffed the

significance of the project, limiting it to encouraging youths to secure legal aid (NSLA).

3. The project was conceptualized in term of three phases, namely research,

preparation for service delivery, and service delivery.

4. The first two phases were successfully implemented but the third phase ran

into unexpected problems.

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5. The third phase objectives faced formidable barriers in securing the

collaboration of police services to provide the YCLW with the names, addresses and telephone numbers of young accused persons so that the project could meet its primary target, namely contacting young accused persons prior to first appearance and especially prior to their obtaining legal assistance (NSLA).

6. The assistance provided by the YCLW worker was chiefly passing along court

processing information, and encouraging the youth to adhere to the regulations and also to secure Legal Aid. The young clients were also frequently asked if they wanted or needed any other assistance but in a rather perfunctory fashion which yielded few such requests.

7. Absent a satisfactory solution to the problem of police reluctance to pass

along the information required until January 2010, and given the additional problem of either not being able to track a good portion of the few referrals received and having the few contacted either decline their offer and / or say that they had legal aid which generally concluded the telephone contact, the third phase was severely crippled.

8. The mandate of the YCLW in retrospect was much too restrictive and

bypassed the possibilities of implementing the liaison as a “neutral friend of the court”, probing the strategies to respond to the repeat offenders who indicated that they did not need or want the information and generalized assistance that the YCLW worker was offering, and not pursuing referrals that might have come from Probation (e.g., delays in completing the PSR).

9. Essentially the YCLW workers had the dilemma of few referrals and little

apparent need for the services they were offering.

10. These difficulties in providing a meaningful service were compounded by significant turnover in the YCLW position. There were three occupants of the role in the scheduled eighteen months of project life.

11. In addition to working through these problems and setbacks, the YCLW

workers had little time to establish themselves as players in the CJS or even as an essential component of the managing RJ agency which itself had a well-earned reputation. Putting a process in place is one thing, securing meaningful buy-in is another. The project itself was too short term to achieve those goals.

12. There is evidence from the analyses of court dockets and the YCLW workers’

files that the problem of delays in youth court processing may have little to do with not knowing court procedures or the perceived possible negative impacts

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of not following undertakings etc. The evidence in this report is consistent with the observations of other court liaison and police liaison personnel, namely that a modest percentage of the young accused persons – the so-called “15” - are multiple repeat offenders who may be quite familiar with their court situation and, for purposes of efficient case processing as well as crime prevention, they have to be reached in ways other than, and with more depth than, what the YCLW service was conveying.

13. The court docket data analysed here strongly support the above contention

showing that roughly 75% of the youth appearances over a ten month period were appearances by, maximally, 20% of the youth and these 20% were multiple repeat offenders with at least one serious criminal code offence to go along with a heap of “secondary” administration of justice (i.e., YCJA 137 and 139, cc 145) charges. Themes #11 and #12 would suggest the heuristic value of conceptualizing a different youth court liaison / intervention model.

14. CJS officials, in interviews and other contacts, generally had a favorable view

of the YCLW project but held that the YCLW role was implemented with a too restrictive mandate and carried out with a too restrictive approach. Only one interviewee considered that the impact to-date of the YCLW was significant on either the youth or the CJS system but they all saw value-added for the system if the YCLW were to evolve in various ways.

15. The above officials emphasized a number of common themes namely (a) that

overall there is no crisis in the manageability of case processing times for youth but there are problems for the court processing associated with a minority of repeat, serious young offenders; (b) the “pre-legal aid secured” court processing phase is the important phase to concentrate on; (c) there is value in a more holistic approach to the court liaison role and it certainly should not end when the young accused has obtained a lawyer; (d) the appropriate organization to house the YCLW would unquestionably be the restorative justice societies for many reasons (e.g., neutral, well-informed); (e) it takes time for a new CJS service to become accepted as a meaningful collaborator for a host of reasons (e.g., there are privacy and other rules about sharing information that cannot be lightly dismissed); (f) there was much consensus on the need for and value of the YCLW as a “neutral friend of the court” and as a navigator for youths and parents with respect to both the CJS system and local social services and programs; (g) there could be good value in the YCLW being housed where there was in-depth, organizationally-based knowledge available to the worker concerning how the court system works and what resources are available for the youths and their parents at the community level; the RJ agency was deemed to be such an organizational base.

16. There was recognition by most CJS officials participating in the assessment that, while there is a need for a YCLW-type role and that equity demands it

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(there are such roles in HRM and in the Aboriginal community), there is a necessity to factor into the priority setting, issues such as population and youth court overall caseload. For many CJS respondents this is a powerful reason for having the YCLW role broadly mandated and multi-tasked outside the metropolitan areas.

17. There was a widespread view, if not complete consensus, among the officials

and other respondents in this evaluation that the central problem in youth court case processing is how to deal effectively with the serious and multiple repeat offenders who tie up the court process and do so for reasons that are not clear, but usually not because they do not understand the appropriate procedures and rules and the implications of violating them. .

Conclusions and Future Directions The YCLW project was successfully implemented in many respects as noted

above, but clearly ran into unexpected problems in providing its essential service to

young accused persons. It was unable to secure the desired level of needed police

referrals and appears to have mis-identified (as may have the Nunn Inquiry) how to

meaningfully connect with the high risk youth who are at the heart of court processing

and crime prevention issues, certainly in the Nunn sense of those issues. It would be

unfair to criticize the project for matters such as few police referrals over which it had no

control or for not being able to formulate an effective approach to engaging the high risk

youths – indeed who has?

There are strong reasons for re-conceptualizing the YCLW approach and

developing a more elaborate model of intervention. The police and probation referral

issues have been appreciated and can be accommodated in a different model. There is

better understanding because of the YCLW project, and among others in the CJS, of the

need for new strategies in working with – highlighting - the high risk youths. There is

more consensus among the CJS respondents that that there is a need and an equity

imperative for having a youth court liaison worker and that the organizational context for

one housed in the restorative justice agency is the best option. There was widespread

agreement within the project, among the CJS officials in its two advisory committees,

and among virtually all other respondents, that the project should evolve in its mandate to

consider activities such as a navigator role, seek referrals from Probation, do more

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problem-solving and so forth. There could be significant value in exploring some of these

trajectories in the context of developing a strategic action plan for the youth court liaison

role outside the HRM.

Exploring too the implication of such a role as the YCLW worker being absorbed

into the restorative justice agencies outside HRM where the population is declining

might also be considered. Here it may be noted that while long term trends clearly

indicate a decline in regular agency caseload, short term patterns may not be congruent

with that prediction (e.g., reportedly, for several reasons the Truro society has seen an

increase in its caseload over the past eighteen months) and the impact and resources for

any move to have restorative justice programming available for adults would have to be

taken into account. In sum, there are a number of directions that can be fruitfully

considered. It is a truism but sometimes there is more to be learned when things do not

succeed as one had expected.

The overall policy relevance of the YCLW project may well have been to sharply

underline that the pivotal policy problem issue for crime prevention and for youth court

administration is not the average length of time in processing youth cases. Rather, it is the

fact that a small number of multiple repeat offenders – “the 15” as we have labeled them

– cause a disproportionate amount of court time and account not only for much crime but

also for perhaps as much as 75% of all the administration of justice or “secondary”

criminalization which does take court time and limit effective court action. They

constitute the proverbial “elephant in the room” for crime prevention and case

processing. The YCLW project was not focused on this central problem and did not have

the mandate or the tools to deal with it. A different model would appear to be required, a

youth intervention outreach model, a model that does not exist in Nova Scotia but does

have some modest commonality with the NSLA approach in HRM and the MLSN court

worker approach in the Aboriginal community. In this evaluator’s viewpoint such a

multi-tasked youth intervention approach pinpointing the central youth problem

highlighted by the YCLW project could be a major step forward for the justice system in

Nova Scotia.

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WORKS CITED

Clairmont, Don, and Jane McMillan, “The Native Court worker in Nova Scotia” in their Future Directions in Mi’kmaq Justice, Halifax. Nova Scotia. Tripartite Forum on Native Justice, 2001. (Atlantic Institute of Criminology Website, Dalhousie University) Clairmont, Don, and Jane McMillan, “The Court worker Program” in their Directions in Mi’kmaq Justice: An Assessment of the MLSN and Its Possible Futures, Halifax. Nova Scotia. Tripartite Forum on Native Justice, 2006. (Atlantic Institute of Criminology Website, Dalhousie University) Clairmont, Don, Violence and Public Safety in Halifax Regional Municipality: Main Volume. Halifax: Mayor’s Roundtable, 2008. (Atlantic Institute of Criminology Website, Dalhousie University). Clairmont, Don, The Early Resolution Project: An Assessment of Its Implementation, Impact and Future Directions. Halifax: The Public Prosecution Service, 2009. (Atlantic Institute of Criminology Website, Dalhousie University) Clairmont, Don, Assessment of the John Howard R.J. Society’s Youth Court Liaison Project: A Progress Report. Truro, 2010 Degusti, B, The Impact of the Youth Criminal Justice Act on Case Flow in Alberta and System Response in Calgary. The Canadian Research Institute for Law and Family, Calgary AB, 2008 Department of Justice, Nova Scotia, Fact Sheet: Crime in North Central Nova Scotia in 2005. Government of Nova Scotia: Halifax, 2006 Department of Justice, Nova Scotia, Community Counts: Justice Police Districts. Government of Nova Scotia: Halifax, 2006 Government of Alberta, MLA Review of the Aboriginal Court worker Program. Edmonton: 2006 Henderson, Susan and Abby Miller, The Youth Court Liaison Worker Pilot Project: Narrative Report. John Howard Society, Truro, 2010. Australian Government, Court Liaison Handbook for Youth Court Social Workers. Adelaide SA, 1997

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John Howard Society, Colchester East Hants, Project Proposal: Youth Court Liaison Worker. 2008 Marshall Consulting and Associates, Evaluation of AWorking Together@: Pre-Breach Conferencing and Community Accountability Pilot Project. Truro: A Youth Restorative Justice Project, 2004 Regional Restorative Justice Committee for Colchester East Hants, Comments Regarding the Youth Court Liaison Worker Pilot Position, June 5, 2008 Report of the Nunn Commission Inquiry, Spiralling Out Of Control: Lessons Learned From A Boy In Trouble. Halifax: Province of Nova Scotia, 2006

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APPENDICES

A. YCLW REFERRAL FORM FOR POLICE SERVICES  The “Time to Fight Crime Together” Strategy – Youth Court Liaison Worker Pilot Project has been appointed by the Order in Council “as a member of a class of persons who shall have access to records kept pursuant to section 114 and may have access to records kept pursuant to sections 115 and 116 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act...” this is also in pursuant to section 119 (1)(r) of the YCJA.   Information to be faxed to 902‐843‐3383 for the YCLW to offer the service to Youth and Parent(s)/Guardian(s):  Suspect (Youth):    Name:    _________________________________  D.O.B:    __________________________________  Phone Number(s): _________________________  Addresses:  _______________________________          ________________________________          ________________________________  Appearance Date: _____________________________ Occurrence number: __________________________ Suspects Guardian: Name(s): ____________________________________ Phone Number(s) and address: Same as above ___ Or ________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ Thank You. Janna L McCullough

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B. YCLW INTAKE FORM

John Howard Society of Nova Scotia Youth Court Liaison Worker

Intake: Referred to YCLW by: __________________________________ Name: ____________________________________________ Phone Number: ______________________________________ Address: ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ School: ______________________________________________ Grade: _______________________________________________ Work: _______________________________________________ Guardian 1: Name: ____________________________________________ Phone Number: ______________________________________ Address: ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Work: _______________________________________________ Phone Number: _______________________________________ Guardian 2: Name: ____________________________________________ Phone Number: ______________________________________ Address: ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Work: _______________________________________________ Phone Number: _______________________________________ Appointment Dates: Reason: ________________________________ Date: _________ Time: ________ Reason: ________________________________ Date: _________ Time: ________ Reason: ________________________________ Date: _________ Time: ________ Reason: ________________________________ Date: _________ Time: ________ Reason: ________________________________ Date: _________ Time: ________ Reason: ________________________________ Date: _________ Time: ________

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