Research

Susan Reid is known for her applied research in the area of youth justice and has worked with young people in custody to help inform her understanding of the key issues facing youth in conflict with the law. She has also done work on youth engagement, drug endangered children and continues her commitment to work on child and youth rights.

Susan Reid is the director of the Eastern hub of the Students Commission of Canada/ Centre of Excellence on Youth Engagement. As an adult ally to the youth-led organization, Youth Mattersat St. Thomas, Dr. Reid worked to establish a Youth Matters chapter inside the only closed custody facility for youth in the province. Dr. Reid has studied issues with the youth in custody related to adult-youth partnerships, reintegration plans, institutional bullying, and youth engagement.

Dr. Reid, has given expert testimony to both the Senate Committee on Human Rights (Children: The Silenced Citizens), and the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs regarding the Young Offenders Act and the Youth Criminal Justice Act (1995,2005, 2011). She is also a member of the youth-at risk working group for the Department of Public Safety, and sits on the roundtable for the Provincial Strategy for the Prevention of Harm for Children and Youth. 

She has recently published, in collaboration with Rebecca Bromwich and Sarah Gilliss, Youth and the Law: New Approaches to Criminal Justice and Child Protection (2015). Forthcoming, is an edited work with Marc Alain and Ray Corrodo Implementing and Working with the Youth Criminal Justice Act across Canada with University of Toronto Press. This book brings together academics from each of the ten provinces and territories to consider how the YCJA has been implemented and the problems and issues that have faced front line youth justice professionals. Within this volume is a chapter contributed by Prof. Josephine Savarese, also from the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Having just completed a four year program evaluation of an evidence based crime prevention program for the John Howard Society of New Brunswick (Quantum Opportunities Program), Dr. Reid’s research uncovered a statistically significant correlation for the enhancement of youth strengths as a way to reduce criminogenic risk factors in a population of high risk students in Saint John, New Brunswick.

Dr. Reid is currently on a research team working on a SSHRC grant with Dr. Marc Alain “The thin line between control and protection: a comparison of motives and contexts of conviction and protection of adolescents in two Canadian provinces” which is considering the overlap between “protection” and “punishment” for youth in conflict with the law in Quebec and Ontario. Dr. Reid is also working with Joshua Barath and Bruce Tripp for a new book Corrections in Canada and with Dr. Karla O’Regan (Criminology and Criminal Justice) on a second edition of Thinking about Criminal Justice.