Timothy Hartnagel is professor emeritus in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. He is the editor of the text Canadian Crime Control Policy (1998, Harcourt Brace), and the co-author of Fractured Transitions from School to Work (1995, Oxford University Press). He has also published widely in professional journals, including Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, and the Canadian Journal of Criminology. He twice been appointed as a visiting fellow at the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University.
This paper reviews some of the recent political rhetoric and public opinion on the controversial subject of youth crime and how to deal with it, including the Young Offender’s Act of 1984 and the new Youth Criminal Justice Act.