Youth Court Judges' Views of the Youth Justice system: The results of a survey

Judges' views on the administration of the sentence

One of the potential issues for judges is their loss of control over the case once a youth leaves their courts. Not only do they have little power to ensure that their decisions are executed, but they also do not necessarily find out the form in which their orders are carried out. A number of questions were asked about this problem of "feedback" (some of which were discussed earlier in the context of community service orders).

As can be seen in the following table, judges varied in their confidence that the rehabilitative programs which they had ordered as parts of probation orders [48] would be provided in a timely fashion. Although some variation was found across jurisdictions, the differences were not significant. In most provinces/territories, variation existed, with some judges indicating that the program would be provided in a timely fashion in most cases and some judges indicating that timely delivery could only be expected in a few cases. About one in six judges indicated that they did not know.

Proportion of cases where judge expects a non-custodial rehabilitation program to be provided timely fashion
  Frequency Valid percent

Cumulative percent
Valid All/almost all   21 8.9 8.9
Most 74 31.2 40.1
About half 54 22.8 62.9
A few 26 11.0 73.8
Almost none, none 21 8.9 82.7
Don’t know 40 16.9 99.6
Never Order 1 0.4 100
Total 237 100  
Missing 1    
Total 238    

Judges were also asked [49] to indicate the proportion of cases in which they ordered rehabilitative programs as part of a custodial disposition and were confident that the program would be provided during the period of custody. Again, a good deal of variability existed within each jurisdiction. However, the variability among jurisdictions was not statistically significant.

Proportion of cases where judge expects that a custodial rehabilitation program will actually be provided
  Frequency Valid percent Cumulative percent
Valid All/almost all 24 10.2 10.2
Most 78 33.2 43.4
About half 28 11.9 55.3
A few 27 11.5 66.8
Almost none, none 18 7.7 74.5
Don’t know 43 18.3 92.8
Never Recommend 17 7.2 100
Total 235 100  
Missing 3    
Total 238