Parents and Youth Justice

This article examines parents in the youth justice system, based on a conceptual analysis and a phenomenological inquiry of parents with a son convicted of crimes in the youth justice system of a district in Western Canada. The difficult task of parenting a young offender is made more onerous by the societal tendency to blame parents or ignore their need for support; yet policies and practices expect parents to be the primary sources of supervision, care, and rehabilitation of youth in difficulty. The findings chronicle parental experiences of stress and loss and the hard work parents do to respond to the difficult and contradictory expectations of the youth justice system. Even when they did "all the right things" parents encountered systemic injustices and exclusion from meaningful participation in important decisions that affected their sons and themselves. The discussion explores implications, taking parental experiences into account, and proposes systemic changes, based on a community change approach to youth justice, to facilitate enhanced parental support and empowerment.