Black Youth and the Criminal Justice System: Summary Report of an Engagement Process in Canada
Between August 2020 and April 2021, the Department of Justice Canada (JUS), in collaboration with the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat at the Department of Canadian Heritage, conducted an engagement process to better understand the challenges facing Black youth who have been in contact with and involved in the Canadian youth CJS. This process supports the federal government’s broader efforts under Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy to address access to justice issues. It is also part of the Government of Canada’s commitment to the International Decade for People of African Descent, which has prioritized justice as one of three overarching pillars. The initiative also supports JUS’s 2021 Mandate Letter commitment to address systemic discrimination and the overrepresentation of Black people in the CJS.
A community-based approach was taken for this engagement process. The work was led by seven community liaisons who organized and guided focused virtual engagement sessions and meetings in six cities across Canada: Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax. A total of 224 individuals with diverse intersectional backgrounds and experiences participated in these discussions. Participants included Black youth aged 18 to 29, who have had experiences with the CJS under the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) when they were 12 to 17 years old, as well as family members and other key stakeholders who could also speak to the experiences of Black youth who have come into contact with the CJS. Each community liaison provided a site-specific summary of key findings and suggested priority areas for action based on their sessions. The following report summarizes the content of the seven site-specific summaries.
Datasets available for download
Additional Info
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Last Updated | October 20, 2025, 03:15 (UTC) |
| Created | October 20, 2025, 03:15 (UTC) |
|
Domain / Topic
Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
|
|
|
Title
Title for the Dataset.
|
Black Youth and the Criminal Justice System: Summary Report of an Engagement Process in Canada |
|
Description
A description of the dataset.
|
Between August 2020 and April 2021, the Department of Justice Canada (JUS), in collaboration with the Federal Anti-Racism Secretariat at the Department of Canadian Heritage, conducted an engagement process to better understand the challenges facing Black youth who have been in contact with and involved in the Canadian youth CJS. This process supports the federal government’s broader efforts under Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy to address access to justice issues. It is also part of the Government of Canada’s commitment to the International Decade for People of African Descent, which has prioritized justice as one of three overarching pillars. The initiative also supports JUS’s 2021 Mandate Letter commitment to address systemic discrimination and the overrepresentation of Black people in the CJS. A community-based approach was taken for this engagement process. The work was led by seven community liaisons who organized and guided focused virtual engagement sessions and meetings in six cities across Canada: Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax. A total of 224 individuals with diverse intersectional backgrounds and experiences participated in these discussions. Participants included Black youth aged 18 to 29, who have had experiences with the CJS under the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) when they were 12 to 17 years old, as well as family members and other key stakeholders who could also speak to the experiences of Black youth who have come into contact with the CJS. Each community liaison provided a site-specific summary of key findings and suggested priority areas for action based on their sessions. The following report summarizes the content of the seven site-specific summaries. |
|
Tags / Keywords
Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.
|
|
|
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc)
File format of the dataset.
|
|
|
Dataset Size
Dataset size in megabytes.
|
|
|
Metadata Identifier
Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
|
|
|
Published Date
Published date of the dataset.
|
2022-06-27 |
|
Time Period Data Span (start date)
Start date of the data in the dataset.
|
|
|
Time Period Data Span (end date)
End date of time data in the dataset.
|
|
|
GeoSpatial Area Data Span
A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.
|
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
|
Access category
Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
|
|
|
License
License used to access the dataset.
|
Open Government Licence - Canada |
|
Limits on use
Limits on use of data.
|
|
|
Location
Location of the dataset.
|
https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/8f31104d-b8b3-4359-bef1-17625ac3551e |
|
Data Service
Data service for accessing a dataset.
|
|
|
Owner
Owner of the dataset.
|
Department of Justice Canada | Ministère de la Justice Canada |
|
Contact Point
Who to contact regarding access?
|
|
|
Contact Point Email
The email to contact regarding access?
|
|
|
Publisher
Publisher of the dataset.
|
|
|
Publisher Email
Email of the publisher.
|
[email protected] |
|
Author
Author of the dataset.
|
|
|
Author Email
Email of the author.
|
|
|
Accessed At
Date the data and metadata was accessed.
|
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
|
Identifier
Unique identifier for the dataset.
|
|
|
Language
Language(s) of the dataset
|
|
|
Link to dataset description
A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
|
|
|
Persistent Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
|
|
|
Globally Unique Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
|
|
|
Contains data about individuals
Does the data hold data about individuals?
|
|
|
Contains data about identifiable individuals
Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
|
|
|
Contains Indigenous Data
Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
|
|
|
Portal Type
Platform type of the source portal.
|
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
|
Version
Version of the datatset
|
None |
|
Source
Source of the dataset.
|
None |
|
Version notes
Version notes about the dataset.
|
|
|
Is version of another dataset
Link to dataset that it is a version of.
|
|
|
Other versions
Link to datasets that are versions of it.
|
|
|
Provenance Text
Provenance Text of the data.
|
|
|
Provenance URL
Provenance URL of the data.
|
|
|
Temporal resolution
Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
|
|
|
GeoSpatial resolution in meters
Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
|
|
|
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions)
Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.
|
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
|
Indigenous Community Permission
Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
|
|
|
Community Permission
Community permission (who gave permission).
|
|
|
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about
Indigenous communities from which data is derived.
|
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
|
Number of data rows
If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
|
|
|
Number of data columns
If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
|
|
|
Number of data cells
If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
|
|
|
Number of data relations
If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
|
|
|
Number of entities
If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
|
|
|
Number of data properties
If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
|
|
|
Data quality
Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
|
|
|
Metric for data quality
A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.
|
0 Comments