Saskatchewan Police Officers’ Perceptions of Justice Paradigms: Their Impact on Discretionary Decision-Making with Youth

Extrajudicial measures and sanctions (EJS) provide an example of how restorative justice has become a component of the criminal justice system through legislation such as the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA). This thesis investigates Saskatchewan police officers’ perceptions of various justice paradigms – restorative, retributive, restitutive, and rehabilitative. It examines how officer perceptions, in combination with other characteristics, affect the use of officer discretion with youthful offenders. Findings from ordinary least-squares (OLS) regression indicated no statistically significant effect of the analyzed independent variables on restitutive and restorative justice paradigmatic perceptions. Officers’ perceptions of retributive justice were affected by their years of service, training on alternative measures (AM) guidelines, and the type of service with which they were employed. The greater the years of service, receiving training, and employment with the RCMP resulted in lower support for retributive approaches to justice. Perceptions of rehabilitative justice were higher for officers with more years of service and who had received AM guidelines training. Findings from logistic regression analyses suggest officers who: have more years in police work, received training on AM guidelines, work for the RCMP, are female, and agree less with the retributive paradigm of justice are less likely to charge and more likely to refer youth to restorative justice interventions. Training appears to have the broadest effect, and thus review and expansion of training may be beneficial to increasing the use of EJS through the YCJA.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Justice Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Glowatski, Krystal Ann

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jones, Nicholas

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Ruddell, Richard
• Carleton, R. Nicholas

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

https://doi.org/10.82465/4810

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uregina.scholaris.ca:10294/5428