Realistic sentence for teenage assault...in the nineties?

November 18, 2010 9:46 PM

Legal question (but not for an actual legal matter! Just for research on a present project.) What would the likely typical sentence for a teenage kid under Canada's Young Offenders Act (since replaced by the Youth Criminal Justice Act)?

I remember kids back in the nineties getting sent away for a couple of months to juvey for beating people up, then returning to school...is that typical? Imagine the crime is a fairly serious beating, but it's a young kid in Ontario without any previous infractions. And in the late nineties. Really just to make sure I'm portraying something realistically in a writing project, and having trouble finding details of an actual case.

posted by southvie to Law & Government (2 answers total)

Both police and the judiciary exercised a great deal of latitude in dealing with young offenders in the 1980s and 1990s, so your search for a typical sentence may prove difficult. Some sources that may help:

A summary of trends involving male young offenders in the 1990s

A bibliography for police discretion in dealing with young offenders including the period of interest to you

Recommendations from the John Howard Society in Alberta on improving youth justice in the period of interest to you
posted by thatdawnperson at 3:06 PM on November 19, 2010

If your imagined beating is less severe than the one in this case, a few months jail is a possible sentence (see the lack of jail for this assault causing bodily harm, though no facts are given).

It's hard to find Ontario cases in CANLII for that time period, so I found a slightly earlier BC case where a three month sentence was imposed for an assault leading to 12 stitches, though the accompanying robbery conviction impacts the analysis.
posted by birdsquared at 9:26 PM on November 19, 2010