Here is an interesting story -
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/9010115.html
There was a drive-by shooting that has resulted in a
fifteen year old boy being arrested for the attempted murder of a fourteen year old.
Here's an interested part of the article:
Quote:
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The boy is no stranger to youth court. He has six convictions on his record, including one for aggravated assault and one for robbery, but hasn't been sentenced to a single day in jail.
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The youth justice system is extremely broken in NS. I don't know about other provinces, but a small number of people commit a hugely disproportionate number of violent crimes and they serve little or no jail time.
There was a case a while back where a teenager (possibly in a stolen car, I don't remember) was joyriding and killed a woman. It turned out he had some ridiculous number of prior similar offenses that simply never resulted in him hitting somebody, so he got off basically without penalty.
I can see letting first time offenders off with some kind of community service or whatever but repeat offenders need to rapidly see more and more jail time. On the one hand the courts shouldn't unnecessarily destroy the lives of young people who simply "screw up", but there are some serious criminals who are not going to change and need to be kept away from the public.