When you think about youth crime, do you imagine a country with a high rate of young offenders, gang activity and recidivism? Or imagine a country with a significant increase in young offenders successfully reintegrated into society or supported by a community when they seek forgiveness for a minor crime they have committed? Since the passage of Bill C-7 or the Youth Criminal Justice Act on February 4, 2002 by the House of Commons, many significant improvements have been made to Canada's youth criminal justice system in how to manage and care for young offenders. Some of the reasons why Bill C-7 was passed in Canada was because the previous bill, the Young Offenders Act, had many problems and faced extensive scrutiny from Canadian citizens. It is for these reasons that Bill C-7 was revised several times before being passed, having previously been called Bill C-68, March 1999 and Bill C-3, in October 1999. That said , many Canadian citizens we are still left pondering the question of whether there is even a significant improvement in our youth criminal justice system when comparing the Youth Criminal Justice Act to the Young Offenders Act? In my opinion, there have been many significant improvements made to the Youth Criminal Justice Act that have helped our justice system. By addressing the weaknesses of the Young Offenders Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act has helped Canada improve youth criminal justice by implementing better out-of-court measures, ensuring the effective reintegration of a youth once released from custody, and providing much more clarification on sentencing . options. To begin with, extrajudicial measures are methods used to address… half of the document… parliament has strengthened its extrajudicial measures, ensured the effective reintegration of a young person once released from custody, while creating more places employment and reducing reoffending rates and has provided much-needed clarification on sentencing options by providing better guidance to the courts. Although the Youth Criminal Justice Act remains a very important law with many improvements, there are still many issues contained in the law that still need to be improved. With this conclusion I must insist on asking the following question: will there ever be a non-problematic piece of legislation? One can only imagine the answer, for now. Works Cited http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection-R/Statcan/85-002-XIE/0060085-002-XIE.pdf http://dsp -psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection -R/LoPBdP/CIR/8613-e.htmhttp://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2008003/article/10566-eng.htm