Report calls for community-based approach to youth crime reduction

WATCH: New Brunswick’s child and youth advocate released a report Wednesday aimed at keeping youth out of the criminal justice system. The report looked at how well New Brunswick is administering the youth criminal justice act and made 10 recommendations. Alex Abdelwahab reports.

MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick’s Child and Youth Advocate says greater investment in community-based approaches to youth crime reduction will reduce the number of young people behind bars and save money in the long run.

Norm Bosse makes 10 recommendations in a report released Wednesday entitled More Care Less Court.

He said there needs to be more training for people who deal with troubled youth, and government should not be using criminal prosecutions as a means to access mental health services for young people.

“The last thing we want to do is charge the youth, if we can avoid that we’ve done justice for both the youth, the community, and we’ve attempted presumably to reintegrate the youth into the community, which is really what we want to do,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The last thing we want to do is charge the youth, if we can avoid that we've done justice for both the youth, the community, and we've attempted presumably to reintegrate the youth into the community, which is really what we want to do," he said.

Bosse says there are currently 25 to 30 New Brunswick youths in custody at any given time, but with greater use of counselling and diversion programs, that could be reduced to five to 10.

“What we’ve found is that there were some gaps in the administration of the youth criminal justice act in New Brunswick,” he said. “It’s not the same in every jurisdiction, by that I mean not in every provincial court, it’s dealt with differently.”

Incarcerated youths are currently held in a facility in Miramichi that is shared with adult female inmates, but Bosse says that needs to change because youths are not supposed to be held in the same facility as adults.

He said government has been receptive to the recommendations and he’s hoping changes can be made over the next couple of years.

With files from Global’s Alex Abdelwahab