This article examines parents in the youth justice system, based on a conceptual analysis and a phenomenological inquiry of parents with a son convicted of crimes in the youth justice system of a district in Western Canada. The difficult task of parenting a young offender is made more onerous by the societal tendency to blame parents or ignore their need for support; yet policies and practices expect parents to be the primary sources of supervision, care, and rehabilitation of youth in difficulty. The findings chronicle parental experiences of stress and loss and the hard work parents do to respond to the difficult and contradictory expectations of the youth justice system. Even when they did "all the right things" parents encountered systemic injustices and exclusion from meaningful participation in important decisions that affected their sons and themselves. The discussion explores implications, taking parental experiences into account, and proposes systemic changes, based on a community change approach to youth justice, to facilitate enhanced parental support and empowerment.
The Youth Criminal Justice Act encourages but does not mandate conferencing. Conferencing is a process that brings people together to give advice regarding a decision required following the commission of a harmful, illegal act by a young person. It draws upon practices from diversion and restorative justice movements in juvenile justice. The article presents recent developments in conferencing policies and practices in British Columbia that may be used at various stages of judicial proceedings, and the roles played by different participants. The authors discuss several key issues that need to be evaluated as conferencing develops: the support required to encourage use of conferencing; its focus on minor or serious crimes; and the paradoxical initiatives that promote and restrict community participation in conferencing.
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