The RCMP is also involved in combating gang activity and in preventing youth from joining gangs. One of the RCMP's five strategic priorities is to reduce youth involvement in crime, with current priority issues being bullying, youth radicalization, and drugs and alcohol. The goal of the RCMP is to support sustainable responses that are consistent with the Youth Criminal Justice Act while focusing on early intervention and youth engagement. The RCMP increases youth awareness through programs such as school based prevention initiatives, community engagement, youth consultation, and youth-police partnerships while also intervening with young offenders through extra-judicial measures and restorative justice approaches. Many schools in RCMP jurisdictions …show more content…
The federal government provided funding for the National Crime Prevention Centre's Youth Gang Prevention Fund amounting to $7.5 million per year in ongoing funding. YGP provides time-limited grants and contribution funding for selected, evidence based initiatives in needy communities which targets youth who might join gangs. This program supports targeted initiatives to factors associated with gang violence in communities where problems exist and it also promotes the implementation of evidence based programs. It has proven effective in preventing youth crime by intervening on the risk factors before crime happens and the government is continuing to promote the program with new proposals and project development based on cultural, sporting, and vocational opportunities ("Youth Gang Prevention …show more content…
For example, Ontario instituted a "zero tolerance policy" in the late 1980s and did not experience a reduction in youth crime, despite the fact that the rate of charging youth with offences tripled between 1989 and 1993. An estimated 70% of the total funds spent on youth crime in Ontario are directed towards incarceration, at a cost of $100,000 per year per offender (Carmichael, 2008, p.1). The money spent imprisoning a young person for a year can be used to fund a full year's worth of recreational activities for up to 50 children. Research also demonstrates that social interventions can yield positive, measurable benefits within 3 years and reductions in crime of 25-50% after 10 years. Additionally, crime prevention through early social involvement is very cost-effective, with studies finding that it is nearly ten times more expensive to achieve a reduction in crime through incarceration rather than through social development ("Creating Positive Alternatives"