Although Canada has observed a drastic decrease in the use of secure custody for justice-involved children since the introduction of the Youth Criminal Justice Act (2002), thousands of children are still imprisoned each year. Children in these carceral spaces tend to be the unwanted children of children's rights movements, and, as such, their rights-related experiences are often left unexamined (Abramson, 2006). To this end, by drawing on interview-based accounts and an examination of related policies and training curriculum, this thesis focuses on children's rights awareness, rights-informed practices and child-friendly justice in one provincial secure custody facility in Canada by centring the experiences of eight imprisoned children within a broader context provided by seven facility staff and two members of the provincial Office of the Child and Youth Advocate. Further, conceptualizing the secure custody facility as a porous institution (Ellis, 2021) illuminates the carceral space's dissonance between acknowledging the unique status of children (Hollingsworth, 2008) and working within a system designed for the adult prisoner. The findings indicate that imprisoned children are not made aware of the rights granted to them in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) upon admission to secure custody, nor do children's rights inform decision-making at this facility. However, promisingly, the findings do demonstrate the potential to move towards a child-friendly justice space predicated upon children's rights. Building upon this potentiality, this thesis contributes to the theoretical understanding of children's rights awareness in carceral spaces while also identifying a path toward the integration of children's rights aspects and practices.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/44967 |
| Date | 17 May 2023 |
| Creators | Gilliss, Sarah |
| Contributors | Gervais, Christine L. M. |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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