(CRM1b) Canadian Contributions to Criminology II

Criminology is a multi-faceted field that uses 'crime' as its subject matter but has no single methodological commitment or paradigmatic theoretical framework. Many areas and conversations in criminology, however, are often dominated by work from the US, Britain, and the Scandinavian countries that differ from the Canadian context in significant socio-political respects. The main objective of this session is to connect researchers and discuss work that advances our understanding of crime and criminal behaviour in Canada as well as criminological knowledge more broadly. Tags: Canadian Society, Criminology, Law

Organizers: Timothy Kang, University of Saskatchewan, Daniel Kudla, Memorial University; Chair: Daniel Kudla, Memorial University

Presentations

Quan Nguyen, University of Calgary

The Relationship Between Experiences of Victimization and Law Enforcement Confidence: Insights from a Canadian Young Adult Cohort

This study examines the connection between victimization experiences and confidence in law enforcement among a demographically diverse group of Canadian young adults aged 15-34. It underscores the crucial role of public confidence within the justice system and considers the impact of personal encounters with crime on trust in policing authorities. Drawing on data from the General Social Survey (GSS) Cycle 34: Victimization, the study encompasses 3,396 individuals, analyzing their reported confidence in law enforcement and personal victimization experiences. Employing binary logistic regression, the study investigates critical covariates, including perceived discrimination, sense of community belonging, and general health status, along with a comprehensive array of sociodemographic factors such as gender, minority status, place of birth, religion, disability, education level, official language proficiency, and household income. The analysis reveals a significant negative association between experiences of victimization and confidence in law enforcement. Factors such as perceived discrimination and suboptimal general health status notably exacerbate this relationship. In contrast, a strong sense of belonging within ones community positively correlates with confidence in the police. Educational attainment, gender, bilingual abilities, religious affiliation, and household income are also associated with confidence levels in law enforcement entities. The findings suggest that while victimization experiences generally undermine trust in law enforcement among Canadian youth, this trend can be mitigated through measures that foster community cohesion and individual health and well-being. The study calls attention to the importance of adopting community-based and health-focused policing strategies, mainly aimed at supporting young adults who have endured victimization.

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Non-presenting authors: Hieu Ngo, University of Calgary; Yeonjung Lee, University of Calgary

Allie Wall, Western University

Youth Exposure to Violence & Involvement in the Criminal Justice System: A Developmental Analysis of Youth Police Involvement & the Victim-Incarceration Overlap

In Canada, young people between the ages of 12-24 years are over-represented in police interaction incidents, as both a victim and an accused of a crime (Allen and Superle, 2016; Allen and MacCarthy, 2018). When controlling for population size it’s been shown that later adolescent youth (15-17 years) and younger adults (18-24 years) have the highest rates of police interactions, with incidence rates peaking at age 17 (Allen et al., 2016, 2018). In the Canadian youth justice system, victimized and accused youth are most often treated as two distinct populations, those who perpetrate crime, and those who are victimized by crime. However, for many youths who are involved in the justice system, experiences of victimization, delinquency, and incarceration are often connected, in that victimization may be a contributing factor to subsequent delinquency/incarceration and vice versa (Berg and Mulford, 2017). Within the criminological literature, the terminology ‘victim-offender overlap’ has been primarily used to describe the overlapping relationship that can exist between experiences of victimization and offending (Berg et al., 2017; Jennings et al., 2012). Working from an anti-colonial social work approach, this research adopts the language of ‘victim-incarceration overlap’, to highlight the connections that may exist between youth victimization and later criminalization and/or incarceration. Applying anti-colonial theory within criminal justice research provides opportunities for researchers to better understand the macro-societal conditions that promote the development of violence, and the barriers that negatively impact violence prevention efforts. Part of this work incudes reframing the theoretical discussion on youth violence and youth incarceration to shift blame away from individuals, families, and communities, and onto the policies, systems, and socio-structural conditions that promote the risk of violence, especially among marginalized communities. To support this theoretical reframing, this dissertation uses ‘police interactions’ as a primary unit of analyses. By shifting the unit of analysis away from ‘individual victimization/offending’ to ‘system interactions’, we can better understand the role of the criminal justice system and its effectiveness in promoting healthy transformative change within the lives of children and youth. Using a prospective longitudinal design and ten years of secondary police records data (2010-2020), this research attempts to critically evaluate the use of policing within the lives of youth, while also investigating the developmental nature of the victim-incarceration overlap. The longitudinal patterns of youth-police interactions for a sample of 5,609 Ontario youth are analyzed starting from early adolescence (12-14 years), and continuing into later adolescence (15-17 years), and early adulthood (18-20 years). Results from two studies will be presented. Study one provides a descriptive analysis of youth-police interactions and the victim-incarceration overlap across adolescence and early adulthood (from ages 12 to 20 years). Study two uses a series of multivariate logistic regression analyses to investigate which types of youth-police interactions predict the victim-incarceration overlap for the subset of youth who continue to be involved with the police during early adulthood (n = 2,679). It has been hypothesized that childhood and youth exposure to police-reported violence will be predictive of the victim-incarceration overlap during early adulthood. Findings are discussed in relation to both policy and practice surrounding violence prevention and treatment services.