Online Resources for Teachers:
Youth Criminal Justice Act
Information
Developing a fundamental understanding of the law is an important component of Social Studies instruction, and crosses over into the Health and C.A.L.M. instruction. The Youth Criminal Justice Act is an important act for students to have a basic understanding of at all grade levels, particularly as it applies to their personal lives.
One of the challenges many teachers face in presenting legal information is acquiring the background knowledge. To assist teachers, we have prepared two documents: a shorter overview of the Act, and a more detailed handbook.
IMPORTANT NOTE (March 13, 2012): Parliament has now passed Bill C-10, which will introduce some changes to laws affecting youth, such as the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA). The materials on this site are currently being revised to reflect these legislative changes, and the updated versions will be posted as they are completed. In the meantime, please note that some of these documents will have outdated information. To see a summary of the changes to the YCJA, please refer to this page on the Parliament of Canada website.
PLEASE NOTE: All documents are in PDF format except where otherwise indicated. To view them, you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader, available for free at this link. To save the document to your computer, right-click on the link and choose “Save Target As…” or “Save link as…”.
Introduction to the Youth Criminal Justice Act
Intended For: Teachers, Secondary Grade Level
The Overview is intended to provide a basic working knowledge of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It contains much of the same information that the teaching activities are built around, but is collected in one document without lessons and activities. This document is primarily intended as a teacher overview and reference, although some may wish to print off sections for student use as well.
The Youth Criminal Justice Act Handbook
Intended For: Teachers, Secondary Grade Level
The Handbook offers more information and goes into greater detail than the Overview. It can be used as a resource for teachers, or distributed to students.
Printed copies of the Handbook are also available. If you wish to request copies, please contact us.
Lessons
Legal Rights: Section 7-14 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Sections 1-14 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms establish our legal rights within the criminal justice system. This lesson focuses on examination of this section of the charter.
Legal Rights: The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Excerpt (Section 7-14)
Intended For: Teachers, Secondary Grade Level
Legal Rights: Questions
Intended For: Secondary Grade Level
The questions can be used for individual student examination of the charter, for a group activity, or as a guide for general class discussion.
Legal Rights: Activities
Intended For: Secondary Grade Level
Contains suggested extension activities and links to online information and resources.
Legal Rights: Rules and Laws
Intended For: Elementary Grade Level
This document contains student pages and a teacher’s edition of the same pages. The questions guide students through the purpose and rationale of rules and laws. Students are directed to look for rules around them and ask questions about them. Who makes them? What is their purpose? What are fair consequences? Students also discuss what makes a good rule and have an opportunity to make and test their own rules.
Legal Rights: Court Diagram
Intended For: Secondary Grade Level
This document contains student pages and a teacher’s edition of the same pages. This activity engages students in finding out about the different roles of the courtroom participants and places them in the context of a typical Alberta courtroom. The teacher’s edition pages can also be used as student handouts for information purposes.
Exploring the Youth Criminal Justice Act
Exploring the YCJA: Scope and Principle
Intended For: Secondary Grade Level
This document contains student pages and a teacher’s edition of the same pages. The objective is to engage students in an exploration of the scope and the “declaration of principle” underlying the YCJA. It engages them in examining excerpts from the Act, examining the vocabulary used and its underlying intent. The teacher pages include suggestions for implementation as well as additional resources for extension and exploration.
Exploring the YCJA: Rights & Responsibilities – Police Contact
Intended For: Secondary Grade Level
This page outlines student rights and responsibilities when they encounter police. It relates these rights and responsibilities to the relevant sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Exploring the YCJA: Measures, Courts, Detention, Sentencing
Intended For: Secondary Grade Level
This document gives students the fundamental details of the Act. It is a valuable information source for discussion, and is an essential resource for the Case Study and Role Playing activities (see below).
Exploring the YCJA: Publication and Records
Intended For: Secondary Grade Level
This document can be used for independent study or group work. Students explore publishing, what a record is, how long it lasts, and its impact. Two activity sheets help students use media databases to search for examples of publication bans, explore the personal consequences of having a record and learn how to stay record free.
Exploring the YCJA: Case Studies and Role Playing
Intended For: Secondary Grade Level
In these case studies, students are presented with many youth offence scenarios. Based on their reading and comprehension of the Youth Criminal Justice Act from the previous activities, and examining their own sense of what is just and fair, students work through the cases to determine what might happen to the participants. Teachers can develop and extend this activity through active role playing.
Exploring the YCJA: Youth Judicial Process Flowchart & Questions
Intended For: Secondary Grade Level
This activity offers visual support for students to follow the youth criminal justice process from initial police contact to sentencing. The question sheet guides students through the process, and the answer sheet enables the teacher to provide supporting information. Teachers can make overhead transparencies of the flowchart to facilitate group discussion.
Links
The following links are to external resources that teachers may find useful for lesson extension, student exploration and expansion of personal knowledge on this topic. While we do check these links periodically, we cannot prevent changes on external sites. Please contact us to report any broken links.
ACJnet Access to Justice Network
Teachers will find the articles, documents and links to a wide variety of materials about law and justice in Alberta in the Resource Centreparticularly useful.
Alberta Courts
This site contains information on Alberta’s court system including the Court of Appeal, Court of Queen’s Bench, Provincial Court and Court Services. Of particular interest may be the resources on Youth Court andLocations & Sittings for your region.
Alberta Justice: Education and Learning
A variety of learning resources are provided to support and supplement classroom instruction. Three particularly useful classroom resources are:
● The Justice Education Speakers Centre - Provides an opportunity to invite justice professionals in to your classroom.
● Alberta’s Justice System in Your Community - An introductory overview of the justice system focusing on a third grade audience.
● Teaching about justice, rights and responsibilities - A teaching resource for Social Studies 10
Alberta Solicitor General and Public Security
More information on Young Offenders and the YCJA are available from this website, including:
● A PDF version of the Youth Criminal Justice Act Canada Pocket Guide
● Answers to common questions
● A comprehensive glossary of terms (PDF)
Canadian Legal FAQs: Youth and the Law
This section of the Canadian Legal FAQs website produced by the Legal Resource Centre of Alberta addresses many questions that youth may have about the law and how it relates to them.
Canada’s SchoolNet Lesson Plan Archive - ACJnet has archived a collection of elementary and secondary law related lesson plans available in English and French.
Canadian Legal Information Institute Database (CanLII)
This is a searchable database of law, legal decisions, and individual cases useful for primary source research activities. CanLII is a non-profit organization managed by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada.
Your Guide to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
From the Heritage Canada Human Rights Program. The link goes to the Legal Rights section of the Guide; the main page link is here.
Centre For Research On Youth At Risk – St. Thomas University
This site contains several fact sheets on youth and crime which focus on the restorative justice approach, crime prevention, risk factors, victims, and myths.
Civics Canada Online Textbook
This online textbook produced by The Civics Channel is available for personal use. (For institutional or school use a membership licence is required.) Chapter 10 contains information, statistics and links relating to the justice system and courts.
CourtPrep Interactive Virtual Courtroom
This interactive website enables students to learn about the various roles of participants in the court process.
Department of Justice Canada
Additional and more in depth information on the YCJA is available here. The site includes:
● A link to the full Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA)
● The Youth Criminal Justice Act: Summary and Background provides a brief overview of the act (also available as PDF)
● Information for the Public - A page of documents, information and answers to questions
Criminal Code of Canada
Link to the full text of the Code.
Famous Trials: The Trial of Louis Riel
A collection of information around this historic trial. From a selection ofFamous Trials by Douglas O. Linder at the University Of Missouri – Kansas City School Of Law.
Great Alberta Law Cases
A dynamic resource for exploring Alberta’s legal heritage. This interactive site presents in audio format dramatizations of 30 of Alberta’s most interesting, contentious and influential legal battles and grounds them in a rich, multimedia historical context.
Legal Aid Alberta
This site has detailed information on the legal aid program in Alberta. The I Need Legal Help section has specific information and programs and services offered throughout the province.
Mock Trials from the Ontario Bar Association
The Ontario Bar Association supports mock trials in elementary andsecondary schools as part of their Law Day activities.
Public Legal Education Association of Saskatchewan: Youth and Schools
This section of the PLEA site has a variety of downloadable teaching resources for teachers and students.
Try Judging
This multimedia educational program produced by judges is designed for integration into high school social studies, civics and law courses. “Try Judging introduces students to the role of judges within our judicial system, and encourages exploration of important concepts such as the rule of law, judicial independence and judicial impartiality.” The site contains downloadable student and teacher resources, videos, and interactive content.
Youth Menace: Youth Justice Radio
“The world’s only young offender/child welfare radio show. Youth Menace allows a forum without censorship for youth in conflict with the law.“ Previewing shows for content and language is recommended. A streamed archive of episodes or podcasts episodes are available for listening.
Youth Criminal Defence Office
This site contains crisis numbers, legal information resources, an extensive and searchable list of services available throughout Alberta.