Youth crime

 According to the Harper government, “out-of-control young people”[1]should all be classified in the same category. This means that sex offenders and drug dealers may be punished equally, while the drug dealer has not endangered someone’s life and in my opinion, is not considered dangerous for our society. This does not mean that they should not be punished, on the contrary, they should be punished, but in other ways than being sent to prison, such as fines. Sending youngsters to prison, for every single illegal act committed implies building more prisons because a lot more people will be imprisoned. It will also cost more money to keep the prisons running and provide food for the prisoners.


This new law might not be the solution for youth crime. Instead it will only be more expensive and it won’t even educate the criminals, on the opposite, they will probably be even more likely to, once out of jail, start again. It would be preferable if those young criminals were sent in institutions that prevent and treat youth crime to solve the problem as fast as possible, before they become too dangerous for our society and incurable.


Sending young criminals to jail costs a lot of money and that money comes from us, the society. It was proven that the annual cost of detaining a youngster is of about $100 000 compared to $50 375 for an adult. This means that we pay for these people to be locked and taken care of because they have a lot of services at their disposition.

[1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/weighty-tory-crime-bill-targets-drugs-refugees-parolees-and-terror/article2172621/

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