NCJ Number
166001
Date Published
1996
Length
28 pages
Annotation
After reviewing the literature on youth unemployment and crime in North America, Great Britain, and Australia, this chapter presents a portrait of youth unemployment and crime in Canada, followed by a prognosis for made-in-Canada research and policy initiatives in this area of criminological sociology.
Abstract
Over the past three decades in Canada, youth unemployment and crime have not been carefully examined either as a research agenda or as a public policy concern. For a number of reasons, criminologists in Canada have spent most of their energy on the politics of the Young Offenders Act or on specific issues related to youth crime, such as alcoholism and drug abuse. Yet the evidence from the United States, Great Britain, and Australia all points to a link between youth unemployment and property crime. There is evidence that for juveniles seasonal employment prospects that do not interfere with school can go far to meet the needs and consumer expectations of teenagers. Canadian sociological criminologists should shift their focus and align their research priorities more closely with those of their progressive colleagues in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. They can begin, for example, by requesting from the police the employment status of offenders, establishing longitudinal cohort studies of youth, and initiating a number of "from the street" case studies. Possible policy options to be publicly debated include the reinstituting of family allowances or a guaranteed annual income, 1 year more of compulsory school attendance, and regulation of the amount of part-time employment reserved for high school students. 7 notes, 60 references, 6 tables, and 2 figures