Youth justice policy implementation – community organizations’ perspective

Abstract

This dissertation is situated at the intersection of two gaps in Canadian youth justice literature – limited scholarship focused on youth justice community-based organizations (CBOs) and few studies investigating the impact of neoliberal restructuring in Canadian youth justice. This study provides a Canadian perspective to the growing body of scholarship concerned with the influence of neoliberalism in youth justice and is an example of what a multidisciplinary approach to studying youth justice reveals. Critical institutionalism (CI), a theoretical framework from political economy, is used to address current applications of neoliberalism within criminology. There are two major problems within the criminology scholarship on neoliberalism: (1) a failure to understand the contradictory implementation and reproduction of neoliberal policy logics on relatively autonomous state actors/institutions; and (2) a failure to take seriously the origins of the neoliberal project and its relationship to economic competition. CI addresses these shortcomings by acknowledging the interconnectedness of different levels of influence and thus the role of institutions, structures, and institutionally embedded human agents, to shape, navigate, and implement policy. Drawing from in-depth qualitative interviews with front-line and management staff working in Ontario youth justice CBOs, I illustrate the purpose of these agencies within Ontario’s youth justice system and how their different roles are connected to their efforts to navigate the impacts of neoliberal restructuring and pressures of neoliberal rationalities. Findings shed light on why CBOs do the work they do, not just what work they do, as their experiences revealed the reality of how organizations and individuals struggle, resist, and negotiate constantly in their day-to-day work. The findings here suggest neoliberal logic penetrates deeply throughout youth justice CBOs; however, it is not totalizing such that youth justice CBOs are merely passive receives of the pressures of neoliberal logics. Rather, CBOs and individual staff are resilient and creative in managing these constant pressures with a shared goal of prioritizing youth over all else. Their decisions and operations are grounded in the spirit of non-profit work, yet ongoing broad pressure to fully succumb to neoliberal logics and rationalities remain.