加拿大聯邦政府為了容納各方公眾對如何處理青少年罪犯的意見，在二零零三年通過「青少年刑事罪行警懲法案」。「警懲法案」的一大重點是將青少年罪犯劃分為嚴重罪行者或輕微罪行者。對於觸犯嚴重罪行的青少年，應當嚴懲不赦；對於輕微過失，則從寬處置。其實，「警懲法案」對青少年罪犯的雙重體系處理手法，是糅合了各種青少年懲治理論而建立。但是，這些理論之間並非並行不悖，甚至互相抵觸。因此，在實施及指導青少年司法政策上，每每困難處矛盾重重。有見及此，本文旨在縱合現有文獻，述評公眾輿論如何影響「警懲法案」的製定，研究此法案的理論基礎，和探討在執行法案的過程當中所遇到的種種疑惑及困阻。

The enactment of the current youth justice legislation, 2003 Youth
Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), of Canada was to accommodate competing
public discourses in relation to how to handle youth offending. A dominant
theme that exemplifies the YCJA is the conceptual bifurcation of young
offenders into serious and minor young offenders. Longer custodial sentencing is applied to serious offenders and lenient measures are used for minor offenders. The conceptual bifurcation of penal policy under YCJA is a mixed model incorporating the features and conflicting assumptions from other youth justice models. The inherent tensions of the YCJA might be a challenge for the administration and future policy direction of youth justice in Canada.Thus, by reviewing existing literature, this article is aimed at understanding competing public discourses in shaping the YCJA, examining features of different criminal justice models contained in the YCJA, and discussing concerns in the administration of the legislation.