CRIM 3657 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: People V. Turner, Labeling Theory, Toronto District School Board
CRIM 3657
Lecture #8 – March 8th, 2019
Institutional Responses and Their Impacts on ‘Risky’ Youth
Youth and ‘Riskiness’
- Early 1900s: children guilty of sexual immorality or vice, drinking, truancy, disobeying
parents, using profanity could be institutional
- Present day Quebec: ‘troubled’ youth institutionalized for ‘behavioural problems’
o Line between punishing and helping as very thin
Challenges Confronted by Youth
- ACEs can damage young brains, impede learning, increase mental and physical health
risks
- Cycle of violence: child maltreatment related to delinquency
- ACEs/abuse can lead to aggressive/angry outbursts in school
Labelling Theory
- Development approach – processes unfolding over time
- Labelling of officials/authorities especially impactful
- Delinquent label (incl. for maltreatment) can lead to more serious penalties, higher risk
of recidivism and adult offending, affect self-perception, employability
Youth Perceptions of School Discipline
- Racialized youth see surveillance, cameras, as tools to monitor, punish, not protect
- Some marginalized experience school as stable, inclusive protective factor from criminal
activity
- Black youth perceived as dangerous, older
- Intervention by social workers or psychologists can feel stigmatizing
SRO’s in ‘Risky’ Neighbourhoods
- Uniformed police who patrol high schools
- Criticized as intimidation, surveillance, especially of racialized and Indigenous students,
undermining educational environment
- Deployed in 45 high schools in ‘priority neighbourhoods’
- TDSB suspended program before 2017/18 school year
The School-to-Prison-Pipeline
- Suspensio0n and expulsion can lead to poor academic achievement (short term), and
increase risk of contact with law enforcement and juvenile JS (longer term)
- Toronto: Black, Brown young men disproportionately disciplined in school, surveilled in
community, incarcerated
- Canada: rapid increase in incarceration rates in Indigenous, Black Canadians
• Residues of residential schools being left over- revealed by the disproportionate
offending by indigenous people- lots of them in prisons
Document Summary
Institutional responses and their impacts on risky" youth. Early 1900s: children guilty of sexual immorality or vice, drinking, truancy, disobeying parents, using profanity could be institutional. Present day quebec: troubled" youth institutionalized for behavioural problems": line between punishing and helping as very thin. Aces can damage young brains, impede learning, increase mental and physical health risks. Cycle of violence: child maltreatment related to delinquency. Aces/abuse can lead to aggressive/angry outbursts in school. Development approach processes unfolding over time. Delinquent label (incl. for maltreatment) can lead to more serious penalties, higher risk. Labelling of officials/authorities especially impactful of recidivism and adult offending, affect self-perception, employability. Racialized youth see surveillance, cameras, as tools to monitor, punish, not protect. Some marginalized experience school as stable, inclusive protective factor from criminal activity. Intervention by social workers or psychologists can feel stigmatizing. Criticized as intimidation, surveillance, especially of racialized and indigenous students, undermining educational environment. Deployed in 45 high schools in priority neighbourhoods".
