This thesis attempts to explain changes in juvenile court reasoning from ‘personal’ to ‘social’ goals of justice. The introduction of social reasoning into juvenile justice has resulted in legal reform practices which circumscribe the domain of decentralized community youth services, increase the dependency and surveillance of deviant youth, result in harsher measures of punishment, and generally widen the network of social control through the law. The shift from the treatment intervention focus of the Juvenile Delinquents Act to the deterrence and punishment focus of the Young Offenders Act is maintained by incarcerations and a ‘downward’ sliding tariff of dispositions. The new social control administration formally enters the previously informal social control networks of family, community, and peer relations. Social change options through the law are increasingly centralized in the courts (where youth are concerned) at the expense of the law's potential for mediating decentralized collective change. The new form of social reasoning by which law reform occurs is explicated in order to critique its application for the current legislation and to explore possible use of collective change processes through law. I describe ‘social’ reasoning as a form of interpretive syllogism with the goal of social good satisfied through individual justice, in contrast to ‘personal’ reasoning which involves the individual's best interests as a good in itself. Social reasoning, as currently applied in the YOA, utilizes neoclassical rationality and sociological theories that relate actions to a presumed balance of diverse and competing social interests. My own understanding of the impact of Court interpretations of the YOA are based on in-depth interviews with 10 Youth Court judges in the Vancouver area. I analyze the legislative construction and judicial implementation of the YOA as reflecting a political strategy linked to and grounded in the knowledge relations of experts. Strategies for discipline are consonant with the rationalized practices of social science knowledge, located both in science (the medical model) and in law (sociological jurisprudence). The research findings suggest that ‘social’ reasoning, which is narrowly centered on legal problems arising from the behaviour of juveniles, pursues forms of crime control directly related to the needs of capital. The YOA is thus viewed as a new discourse (based on power and knowledge relationships) that aims to widen state-social control. Given the relatively narrow jurisprudential horizons of both the legislators who framed the YOA and the judges who apply it, the potential of law for effecting social change is curtailed. I conclude my analysis by suggesting a culturally reflexive approach in which legal reasoning, by a process of reconstructing the interpretive syllogism of law to include commonsense practical reasoning, could become more conducive to community change. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

Ce mémoire de maîtrise cherche à jeter un regard approfondi sur les cas des jeunes contrevenants référés au processus de médiation à Trajet, un organisme de justice alternative à Montréal. Plus précisément, les objectifs sont de décrire les caractéristiques des cas référés, d’explorer leur relation avec la participation au processus de médiation et avec le résultat de celui-ci, et de comparer ces mêmes éléments en regard de deux périodes inclues dans le projet : celle où s’appliquait la Loi sur les jeunes contrevenants et celle où la Loi sur le système de justice pénale pour les adolescents assortie de l’Entente cadre sont entrés en vigueur. Des méthodes de recherche quantitatives ont été utilisées pour analyser les cas référés à Trajet sur une période de 10 ans (1999-2009). Des analyses descriptives ont permis d’établir les caractéristiques communes ou divergentes entre les cas référés à Trajet et ceux référés à d’autres programmes de médiation. Des analyses bi-variées ont révélé qu’une relation significative existait entre la participation au processus de médiation et l’âge et le sexe des contrevenants, le nombre de crimes commis par ceux-ci, le nombre de victimes impliquées, le type de victime, l’âge et le sexe des victimes et, le délai entre la commission du crime et le transfert du dossier à Trajet. La réalisation d’une régression logistique a révélé que trois caractéristiques prédisent de manière significative la participation à la médiation : l’âge des contrevenants, le nombre de victimes impliquées et le délai entre la commission du crime et le transfert du dossier à Trajet. La faible proportion d’échecs du processus de médiation a rendu inutile la réalisation d’analyses bi et multi-variées eu égard au résultat du processus de médiation. Des différences significatives ont été trouvées entre les cas référés en médiation sous la Loi sur les jeunes contrevenants et ceux référés sous la Loi sur le système de justice pénale pour les adolescents assortie à l’Entente cadre en ce qui a trait au type de crime, au nombre de délits commis, à l’existence d’une référence précédente à Trajet, aux raisons pour lesquelles la médiation n’a pas eu lieu, à la restitution sous toutes ces formes et, plus spécialement, la restitution financière. La participation à la médiation est apparue plus probable sous la LSJPA que sous la LJC. Des corrélations partielles ont montré que différentes caractéristiques étaient associées à la participation à la médiation dans les deux périodes en question. Seule une caractéristique, le sexe des victimes, s’est avérée reliée significativement à la participation à la médiation tant sous la LJC que sous la LSJPA. Les résultats de ce projet ont donné lieu à une connaissance plus approfondie des cas référés à Trajet pour un processus de médiation et à une exploration de l’impact que la LSJPA et l’Entente cadre sur ce processus. Toutefois, l’échantillon étant limité au cas traités à Trajet ne permet pas la généralisation de ces résultats à l’ensemble des cas référés aux organismes de justice alternative du Québec pour le processus de médiation. / This thesis provides an in-depth look at the cases of young offenders referred to Trajet, an organisme de justice alternative (OJA) in Montreal, for victim-offender mediation. More specifically, the objectives of this thesis are to describe the characteristics of these cases, to examine their relationship with participation in mediation and outcome, and to compare these same elements under the laws and processes in effect during the study time period (Young Offenders Act versus Youth Criminal Justice Act and Entente cadre). Quantitative research methods were used to analyse the cases referred to Trajet over a ten-year period (1999-2009). Descriptive analyses helped to determine how the cases resembled or distinguished themselves from those referred to other mediation programs. Bivariate analyses revealed that offender age, offender gender, offence number, victim number, victim type, victim age, victim gender and case referral delay were significantly correlated with participation in mediation. Logistic regression showed that offender age, victim number and referral delay were significant predictors of victim-offender participation in mediation. Unfortunately, it was not possible to explore characteristics related to mediation outcome through bivariate and multivariate analyses due to the small proportion of cases in which the outcome was unsuccessful. Significant differences were found in cases referred to victim-offender mediation after the implementation of the Youth Criminal Justice Act and the Entente Cadre regarding offence type, offence number, referral for prior offending, victim age, referral delay, reasons for which mediation did not occur, restitution terms and, more specifically, financial restitution. Participation in victim-offender mediation also differed significantly in that participation was more likely following the implementation of the YCJA/Entente Cadre. Partial correlations revealed that different case characteristics were associated with participation under the YOA and the YCJA/Entente cadre. Only one characteristic was significantly correlated with participation regardless of the law and processes in effect: victim gender. This in-depth look at the cases referred to Trajet for victim-offender mediation resulted in a better understanding of victim-offender mediation practice and of the impact of the YCJA/Entente cadre. However, because the sample of cases used was not representative, the results of this study cannot be generalised to the cases referred to all of Quebec’s OJAs for victim-offender mediation.