REGINA — The Saskatchewan NDP is calling for more support for youth victims of crime after new Statistics Canada figures showed many later had contact with police as accused persons.
NDP Justice critic Nicole Sarauer pointed to new numbers from a Statistics Canada study that showed Saskatchewan had the highest provincial rate in Canada of youth victims later encountering police as accused persons.
She noted that, according to Statistics Canada, 71 per cent had at least one subsequent contact with police as an accused person in 2024, which was the highest rate among the provinces. Those numbers also compared with the national numbers showing 58 per cent of child and youth victims having some form of subsequent police contact, whether as a victim, accused person or both.
“This is a direct result of the Sask. Party government under-supporting youth victims of violent crime in Saskatchewan,” Sarauer said.
“These numbers prove that this government's failure to protect vulnerable youth is fuelling our skyrocketing crime rate and public safety crisis. Real public safety means giving young victims the mental health care, family supports and community programs they need so trauma does not become a pipeline to further harm.
“There are many other risks outlined in the report. Marginalization, intergenerational violence, socioeconomic inequality, and barriers to education and mental health supports are also strongly associated with both victimization and offending. And this Sask. Party government needs to step up and give our future leaders the support they need and deserve.”
On what is causing the issue of youth ending up caught in the criminal justice system over and over again, Sarauer said one thing they hear about is a “lack of support for victims of crime.”
“So in this statistic, these youth start off as victims of crime, and more likely than not, they end up later, 71 per cent of them will end up as an accused person later on in life. We need to start at the beginning to ensure that if somebody, if anybody, but in particular young people, are victims of crime, that they are properly supported. And we've heard from many people that the Sask. Party government has been underfunding victim services in Saskatchewan.”
Sarauer also said there needed to be appropriate and adequately funded youth services, as well as for the education system to be properly funded to “be able to ensure that children who are in the education system are supported, and have the tools that they need to keep going to school and to thrive in school.”
She also said families need to be supported with “access to affordable housing, access to mental health and addictions treatment, and access to food security is a huge problem that we're seeing the Sask. Party government fail at.”
She said things like more community supports or recreational opportunities available for youth are “a piece of it.”
“A lot of these solutions have been presented for years. They're simple solutions. They may not be easy solutions. They may not be free solutions, so as a result, we're seeing this government ignore them. But access to safe and inclusive third spaces is something we hear about a lot that is needed and not available for our youth, so that they have places that they can go to, activities that they can do outside of school where they can feel included that isn't gang related. Making sure that youth have access, like I said, to a properly funded education system is another one as well.”
As for specifically what to do to address the situation, Sarauer called for expanded mental health services for children and youth victims of crime, increased school-based and community prevention programs, strengthened financial supports for vulnerable families, improved access to culturally appropriate supports, particularly for Indigenous youth, and investment in early intervention programs that reduce repeat victimization and offending.
SaskToday has reached out to the government for a response and will update once it is provided.
