Touching Spirit Bear Essay

During this first unit of language arts, we studied ways in which justice was served. We looked at excerpts from writers like Linda J. Collier who talked about youth criminals whose treatment was split between as a youth or as an adult due to their actions. These criminals were protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, but they committed crimes that made them worthy of being treated as adults. Prior to this first unit, I was much uninformed about how youth was treated under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, but now I am a very familiar with the YCJA, I have a new stance towards how youths are treated, and my stance is now reinforced after learning more about youth criminals. As I stated originally, I was not familiar with the YCJA before we started this unit, but I became more informed about this act as we progressed through the unit. Through the unit I came to find out that the Youth Criminal Justice Act protected youths from 12-18, but in some states of the USA, children as young as 10 found committing a serious crime were taken to an adult court. However, even if a youth were to commit a massacre, it would still take a lot of convincing for the youth to be seen as an adult;

In Touching Spirit Bear, a large example of how the YCJA is flawed is shown in the figure of Cole Matthews. Before the events in which the story takes place, Cole commits crimes and is sent to multiple detention centres and has many meetings with different councillors, however Cole still continues to do bad things and get in trouble. This is until he is finally seen as something other than a child and is sent to a remote island where he undergoes actual changes. My views on the Youth Criminal Justice Act were reinforced with Cole since he breaks the law with no sign of stopping until he is treated as an adult and he is sent to an island where he finally stops breaking the law and becomes fit for