Normal Bad Boys: Public Policies, Institutions, and the Politics of Client Recruitment

Tony Barclay is a retired juvenile corrections probation officer and a
former public-health research associate at the University of Toronto.

This is not a book for the general reader. It is a meticulous, academic
study of public policies in Quebec as they affect institutions for
non-Catholic boys—in particular, the Shawbridge Youth Centre. Quebec
has always differed from the rest of Canada in its use of juvenile
courts. The small non-French, non-Catholic population, comparatively
rich in resources and for many years the recipient of privileged
treatment by the provincial government, developed a small subculture of
services unique to this country; it is this uniqueness that gives
Rains’s and Teram’s study of these services a special importance.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this book is its attempt to
outline the interaction between political and professional views and
policies relating to the institutional care of boys who have appeared in
the courts. Unfortunately, the lack of human material in the book leaves
the viewpoint of the young people inadequately represented. Could this
lack reflect the long-standing paternalistic views of the policy-makers
under consideration here?

According to Rains and Teram the introduction of the Young Offenders
Act, together with the underfunding of services for young offenders, has
resulted in an increase in youth crime. If that contention is true, this
study must be taken very seriously.