Evaluation of the Youth Justice Initiative Funding Components

5. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This section of the report presents conclusions and recommendations.

5.1. Relevance of the Youth Justice Initiative Funding Components

The YJI funding components reflect the shared authority between federal and provincial/territorial governments over the youth justice system in Canada, providing federal funding to the provinces and territories so that programs and services necessary to support the legislative and policy objectives of the YCJA are available.

In its policy statements, the federal government has recognized the need to balance appropriate sanctions with the importance of rehabilitating young offenders. The objectives of the YJI—including “appropriate use of courts”, “appropriate use of custody”, justice system responses that are “proportionate to the severity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender”, and “enhanced rehabilitative and re-integration opportunities”—align with this notion of a balanced response. Reflecting these objectives, an explicit aim of the YJI is to address youth crime through means other than courts and custody for youth engaged in relatively minor, non-violent crime. Historically high rates of youth incarceration and low rates of youth diversion prompted the federal government to introduce the YJRI (predecessor to the YJI), with emphasis on the use of extrajudicial measures to better address the differential needs of young people, reduce costs associated with courts and custody, and offer more effective interventions in many circumstances.

The evaluation found a continued need for the funding components. Statistics show overall that the youth crime rates have remained relatively stable over the past decade. Violent youth crime has increased slowly, though the majority of these cases involve a common assault. An increasing amount of research is illuminating the links among mental illness, gang involvement, drug abuse and crime. The funding components are responsive to these trends in youth crime by targeting court and custody to the more serious young offenders, ensuring the availability of specialized services for violent youth who suffer from mental illness, testing innovative approaches to emerging youth justice issues, and continuing efforts to rehabilitate and reintegrate all young offenders. This responsiveness to youth justice issues directly links the funding components to the Department’s strategic outcome of “a fair, relevant and accessible justice system that reflects Canadian values” (Department of Justice, 2009, July). Without the funding components, key informants emphasized that programs/projects in line with federal priorities would be restricted (YJSFP) or non-existent (IRCS and YJF), which could result in higher rates of crime, custody and recidivism.

5.2. Program Design and Implementation of the Youth Justice Initiative Funding Components

5.2.1. Design of the YJI Funding Components

Overall, the design of the funding components is appropriate, and each component has design features that respond to the evolving legal framework. The design of the YJSFP promotes programming in support of federal objectives, including the choice between two agreement models and in the programming within each agreement. The high, medium, and low priority categories of the YJSFP are sufficiently broad to encompass a range of programs and services tailored to the needs of each jurisdiction, while the graduated cost-share provides an incentive to target funding to high priority areas. As a result, the YJSFP agreements are important to ensuring the direction of a minimum level of provincial/territorial funding towards evidence-based high priority programs and services. For most jurisdictions, provincial/territorial spending on relevant programs and services is increasing, while the percentage of total funding provided by the federal government is decreasing; over time, the absence of a federal inflation escalator could potentially lead to the erosion of provincial/territorial capacity to deliver programs and services. Because jurisdictions have to maintain their custodial capacity, any service reduction would likely come from high priority programming.

The IRCS Program provides funding to increase access to a greater range of treatment options for violent youth with mental health issues. However, while jurisdictions regularly claimed the maximum allowable under Part A, most claimed less than entitled for Part B, particularly during the community portion of sentences. The evaluation also found a need for greater opportunities for communication and information sharing among IRCS coordinators, to allow jurisdictions to learn from one another to inform the development and refinement of their IRCS processes.

A key strength of the YJF is the Fund’s flexibility to target funding to address emerging issues in particular regions or communities, fund projects or approaches that are not yet tested, and include non-traditional stakeholders who might not otherwise be involved in youth justice projects. However, flexibility should be balanced with enhanced transparency and formalization with respect to the application and review processes, including greater accessibility of Fund information. The Fund could also benefit from improved visibility and outreach, including updates to the Website and additional calls for proposals, as well as increased analysis and dissemination of project results.

5.2.2. Performance Measurement for the YJI Funding Components

The evaluation found room for improvement in the area of performance measurement. For YJSFP and IRCS, the level and type of information provided by different jurisdictions vary considerably, as does the timeliness of reports, which affects the ability to evaluate program effectiveness. Revised reporting requirements for inclusion in the next round of YJSFP and IRCS agreements should be defined based on a clear link to the intended outputs of the funding components, with consideration given to the level of data required for each component and indicator. Recent modifications to the YJF reporting requirements are a step in the right direction to standardize data collection across projects. Funding recipients may also require assistance identifying and measuring appropriate indicators to demonstrate achievement towards intended outcomes.

5.3. Effectiveness

5.3.1. Effectiveness of the Youth Justice Services Funding Program

The evaluation found that provincial/territorial spending on programs and services is strongly aligned with federal priorities, as articulated in the YJSFP agreements. Based on the design of the agreements, alignment with federal youth justice policy objectives is demonstrated by provinces and territories meeting the requirements to receive their full federal contributions. For some jurisdictions, the increase in funding of high priority programs and services largely occurred during the YJRI; however, several provinces and territories continue to increase their spending on high priority programs and services. Jurisdictions have maintained their spending on high priority programs and services following the funding cap that occurred in 2006–2007, though the cap has created some vulnerabilities, particularly in the area of high priority services.

The evaluation found that provinces and territories are offering a wide variety of alternatives to court and incarceration, though the evaluation is limited in its ability to report on these, given the lack of comparability in annual reports. Based on available evidence, commonly available alternatives included extrajudicial measures and sanctions, and ISSPs, while all jurisdictions used reports and assessments and offered rehabilitative and reintegration programming. Jurisdictions experienced decreases in the rate of youth charged, the youth court caseload, and youth sentenced custody rates, as well as corresponding increases in the use of alternative sentencing options and the rate of youth dealt with through alternative means. Remand rates, however, were not similarly impacted, indicating that further work needs to be conducted in order to identify and understand this issue more fully.

Although a relatively large proportion of youth engages in relatively minor delinquent behaviour, a minority is responsible for chronic and serious offending. In line with the YJSFP’s objective of proportionality, the evaluation found evidence of decreasing use of court and custody for less serious offences, and greater concentrations of serious violent offenders in custodial facilities. However, there continues to be variation across jurisdictions in sentencing and incarceration rates, as well as variation in the offence profile of youth entering remand. Finally, the evaluation found more youth were detained by police under the YCJA than the YOA.

5.3.2. Effectiveness of the Intensive Rehabilitative Custody and Supervision Program

The evaluation found that the IRCS Program increased jurisdictions’ capacity to provide specialized services for serious violent young offenders suffering from a mental illness or disorder, and that all jurisdictions have sufficient capacity to administer IRCS sentences. Jurisdictions regularly claimed the maximum allowable under IRCS Part A, and used it to hire specialized staff, contract services from external agencies, conduct staff training and other activities. Jurisdictions would reportedly be unable to provide these services in the absence of IRCS funding.

The IRCS Program also increased access to specialized rehabilitative and reintegration services for serious violent young offenders with mental illnesses or disorders. A total of 42 IRCS sentences was given during the time frame of the evaluation, and these youth accessed a variety of specialized programs and services.

5.3.3. Effectiveness of the Youth Justice Fund

The broad range of organizations conducting YJF-funded projects, and the high degree of collaboration with both traditional and non-traditional youth justice stakeholders, indicate achievement on the intended outcome of enhancing the involvement of and collaboration with diverse partners in the youth justice system. Almost two-thirds of projects developed new partnerships with YJF funding, including almost half that developed new partnerships with both traditional and non-traditional youth justice partners. Another important indicator of success for this outcome was the large proportion of projects that received funding and in-kind support from other sources during the project period or following the end of YJF funding. This funding is often used to leverage support from other funders.

The YJF also demonstrated increased responsiveness to emerging youth justice issues and youth with unique needs through the annual revision of funding priorities and criteria, the provision of targeted funding to address identified gaps, the testing of innovative pilots, the support to youth with unique needs, and the successful incorporation of projects into provincial/territorial, institutional or organizational programming. Although the adoption of pilots into regular practice indicates that knowledge gained is shared to some extent, the evaluation found a need for greater analysis and dissemination of project results. In order to achieve the intended outcome of increasing knowledge of new and innovative approaches, the YJF needs to not only fund projects, but also ensure that findings are documented and shared with relevant stakeholders including other YJF projects, provincial/territorial partners, potential applicants, and the public.

5.3.4. Integrated, Coordinated Approach

The evaluation noted progress toward the intended outcome of a more integrated, coordinated approach to youth justice, both for individual funding components and for the components in concert with one another. The funding components enhance coordination and collaboration with traditional and non-traditional provincial/territorial and community-based partners, and work together in a complementary fashion to target different issues and areas of the youth criminal justice system. However, gaps in programs and services remain, often at the intersection of differing departmental mandates (e.g., justice and health, justice and education, etc.).

5.4. Economy and Efficiency

The design of the programs was found to result in efficient administration. By sharing the same administrative team, the YJSFP and IRCS programs have a very low cost ratio (0.3%). The project-based design of the YJF is more expensive to administer, though at 6.4% it is still very reasonable. Interviewees commenting on the economy of YJF projects often used the comparison of the cost per participant with the costs of incarceration for a similar duration. A few projects provided figures on the cost per participant, which ranged from approximately $10 to $5,000 depending on the target groups, the type of programming, and the number of individuals identified as being impacted by the project. In contrast, estimates of $75,000 to $100,000 per year were given for keeping a youth in custody. Additionally, over three-quarters of the YJF projects were able to leverage additional funding or in-kind support and nearly half of the projects whose YJF funding had ended continued to operate.

5.5. Recommendations and Management Response

While the evaluation supports the continuation of the three funding programs, there remain areas for improvement as presented in this section.

5.5.1. Issue: Information Sharing Amongst IRCS Coordinators

The evaluation found that in some jurisdictions, there is no clear ‘path’ to an IRCS sentence; in other words, there may be no process in place for identifying potential IRCS cases, ordering assessments, and/or following the cases prior to or after sentencing. In general, the consideration of an IRCS sentence was up to the Crown or defence. This may account for the lower number of IRCS sentences than originally projected. Some provinces/territories have undertaken initiatives to educate stakeholders in the criminal justice system about the IRCS sentence, and these were reportedly effective at raising awareness of the sentencing option; however, awareness and understanding of the IRCS sentence, including which charges and diagnoses that qualify, could still be improved in many places. A few jurisdictions have IRCS manuals that outline protocols for their province/ territory and/or have, or are in the process of developing, databases or tracking systems to identify and follow potential cases. Opportunities for enhanced communication and information sharing among IRCS coordinators could allow jurisdictions to learn from one another to inform the development of their own IRCS processes, leading to greater consistency of practice across the country, while still allowing for necessary jurisdictional variation.

Recommendation 1:

It is recommended that the Policy Implementation Directorate, Programs Branch, work with provinces and territories to enhance opportunities among IRCS coordinators to communicate and share information.

Management Response:

Agreed.  The Policy Implementation Directorate in collaboration with provincial and territorial partners will continue efforts commenced in fiscal year 2009-2010 to enhance opportunities among IRCS coordinators to communicate and share information.  To date, various projects have been funded under Part D of the IRCS Funding Program to enhance training and information sharing. For example:

5.5.2. Issue: Availability of Information on the YJF

The evaluation identified a need for enhanced transparency and formalization with respect to the YJF application and review processes, including greater accessibility of YJF information. There is also a need for more outreach on the part of the YJF to encourage more applicants and a greater variety of them.

The YJF’s visibility could be improved by making more detailed and up-to-date information available online. The availability of YJF information relates to a further issue identified by the evaluation: insufficient analysis and dissemination of the results of YJF-funded projects. In order to achieve the intended outcome of increasing knowledge of new and innovative approaches, the YJF needs to not only fund projects, but also ensure that findings are documented and shared with relevant stakeholders including other YJF projects, provincial/territorial partners, potential applicants, and the public.

Recommendation 2:

It is recommended that Programs and Corporate Affairs, Youth Justice, explore ways to increase access to information about the application and review processes for the YJF among prospective funding applicants. It is further recommended that Programs and Corporate Affairs, Youth Justice, ensure that findings are documented and shared with relevant stakeholders including other YJF projects, provincial/territorial partners, potential applicants, and the public.

Management Response:

Agreed.  The YJF is using its website as a primary means of information dissemination.  Online resources have been expanded and updated, and now include the Fund’s Terms and Conditions and the approval process for new projects.  Information on current and past projects will also be made more easily accessible online.  New reporting and evaluation forms and guidelines for funding recipients have been developed to support efforts to analyze project results and disseminate knowledge to relevant stakeholders.

The Fund is regularly sharing information on priorities, projects and calls for proposals with provinces, territories and federal departments and agencies.  Partly as a result of its outreach efforts, the Fund is receiving more applications, experienced only a small lapse in funding in 2009-2010 and is anticipating a minimal lapse, if any, in 2010-2011.

5.5.3. Issue: Performance Measurement and Evaluation Requirements

The evaluation found room for improvement in the area of performance measurement. For all three funding components, there were challenges resulting from variations in the level and type of information provided by funding recipients, which affects the ability to evaluate program effectiveness. The evaluation also identified challenges in distinguishing the impacts of the YCJA from those of the funding components.

Recommendation 3:

It is recommended that a Performance Measurement Framework be developed that covers the YJI policy and funding components and clearly links performance measures to intended outcomes.

Management Response:

Agreed.  We will develop a comprehensive Performance Measurement Framework for the YJI that includes an updated logic model, performance measurement strategy and evaluation strategy. 

5.5.4. Issue: Remand

The evaluation found that jurisdictions experienced decreases in the rate of youth charged, the youth court caseload, and youth sentenced custody rates, as well as corresponding increases in the use of alternative sentencing options and the rate of youth dealt with through alternative means.

The evaluation noted different patterns for sentenced custody and remand that comprise custody statistics.  Overall incarceration rates have declined since the introduction of the YCJA, primarily as a result of decreases in sentenced custody.  The average daily count of youth in sentenced custody fell, while rates of remand remained relatively stable.  These trends have resulted in remanded youth representing a growing proportion of the youth custody population, such that youth in remand outnumbered youth in sentenced custody. 

The evaluation could not explain why remand rates are not decreasing to the same extent as sentenced custody.  This is an important issue since remanded youth are often ineligible for programming but may spend a substantial amount of time in custody.

Recommendation 4:

It is recommended that the Performance Measurement Framework include an approach to explore issues with respect to remand.

Management Response:

Agreed.  We will ensure that the Performance Measurement Framework includes an approach to studying the issues with respect to remand.