The Youth Criminal Justice Act—the federal legislation that governs the youth criminal justice system— was implemented in 2003 in effort to reduce the overreliance on courts and incarceration by increasing the use of out-of-court responses, also known as diversion. To this end, the Act encourages police officers to exercise their discretion in using extrajudicial measures (EJMs) as an alternative to charging youth with a criminal offence. EJMs include actions such as verbal warnings, written cautions, referrals to a community program and referrals to an extrajudicial sanctions program.
This study examined trends in the use of EJMs from 2010 to 2021 using police-reported crime statistics from police services across the country via Statistics Canada’s Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.