The recidivism of young offenders in British Columbia : does sentence length or length of admission make a difference?
Date
2001
Authors
Tanaka, Sandra Harumi
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Abstract
This thesis examines the population of young offenders who received custodial sentences to determine what effect the length of incarceration has on recidivism in British Columbia. Using deterrence theory, this thesis determines that punishment (sentence length and length of admission) has a deterrent effect on juvenile recidivism. The data consists of the criminal history of all juveniles serving sentences in BC corrections facilities over a 17-year period as drawn from the Research and Information System (RIS) extracts of the Ministry of the Attorney General in April 2000 (N=8,202). This thesis distinguishes between one-time only offenders, infrequent offenders, and chronic offenders in the analysis of recidivism. Unlike most studies on recidivism, this thesis conducts separate analyses of male and female offenders. Furthermore, variables such as age at first admission, type of offence, ethnicity, and criminal history variables were controlled for in the analysis.
The results of this thesis indicate that there are significant differences in the deterrence effect of punishment by gender. Length of admission was found to be a statistically significant deterrent for the male juvenile population; however, it was not significant for the females. Also, the type of offence for which a juvenile was incarcerated was discovered to be a significant predictor of re-offending for males but not females. The same was also found true for juveniles who had a history of escaping secured custody. Analysis also indicates that Natives were significantly more likely to re-offend than non-natives.