Manitoba was the only province in the *country* where the average count of youths in provincial custody — read: on remand in jail, serving sentences or in the community on probation or community supervision — went up in 2010, the latest data available from Statistics Canada.
The data was released by the federal agency last week, and appears to show Manitoba being a leader when it comes to the number of criminally-involved kids in the system.
The data is an average monthly “in count” of youths in custody: Here’s what it measures, according to Stats Can
Total actual-in counts represent the sum of sentenced, remand and other status counts and exclude inmates temporarily not in custody at the time of the count. Total actual-in counts include provincial director remand not included in the remand and other temporary detention counts.
I make no assumption of what this data actually means, other than it appears to reflect to some degree the seriousness of youth crime in Manitoba, given that being locked up is always a last resort for judges under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Under the Act, all reasonable alternatives to custody must be looked at before actually locking the cell’s — sorry, unit ‘s— door.
However, without a more comprehensive breakdown of how many youths recorded in the average were on probation or community supervision as part of a sentence, that’s a guess on my part.
But the also shows a massive disparity between the number of kids in provincial custody in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
Again, without wanting to jump to some wrong conclusion, it appears where there’s smoke there’s fire.
Youth crime in our province is a major, under-reported issue. But I’ve always said that.
Here’s the data for your perusal. Comments and thoughts welcome:
(Courtesy Stats Canada)
Here’s a link to the statistics report, which was not subjected to an analysis by the agency. You can read how the data was sourced and the methodology there.
***(excluding Quebec, which did not report 2010 numbers).
Tags: crime, deferred custody, issp, manitoba, police, probation, remand, winnipeg, ycja, youth crime
There is nothing to do in this province at a young age so kids get in trouble and as they get older the trouble gets worse and worse ,it is a way of life.Teach them sports or art or something at a young age, of course it does not help that parents from 1985 and up[not all parents] do not care what their kids are doing.Peaple my age ,42 are very lazy parents and are to irresponsible to see the consequences of their actions.