‘The system felt bigger than me’: Supports needed as youth crimes rise, advocates say

Warren Abbey made his first million dollars selling chocolate bars and chips, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

After spending much of his teen years on the edges of gangs and gun violence, and more than a decade in prison, the million-dollar milestone is “surreal,” he says, because he never imagined he could become a successful business owner.

Now, at 39 years old, Abbey owns a convenience store in Ajax, Ont., runs a staffing agency and has multiple properties. But making his first million dollars wasn’t just about the money.

“That was very empowering for me,” says Abbey, who also works as a youth mentor. “It proved to me that I didn’t have to do it how everyone thought a guy like me had to do it – selling drugs or shooting somebody for money or anything like that.”

“I like spreading that to the youths and showing them that they could make it, too, on their terms.”

As youth crime rates rise, people like Abbey, who work with young people to prevent the root causes of criminal behaviour, say there’s more to the story than numbers. Resources like community programming and mentorship opportunities are key to preventing youth crime, they say, as is learning about the lived experience of those who were involved in the justice system at a young age.

According to Statistics Canada data, young people aged 12 to 17 were charged with crimes at a rate of 982 per 100,000 youth population in 2021. By 2024, that rate rose to 1,375 per 100,000 — a 40 per cent increase.

The steady rise since 2022 comes after youth crime trended downward for almost two decades. The data agency says crimes such as assaults, sexual assaults and firearm offences were major factors.

In Toronto, though the overall number of homicides has declined in 2025 compared to this time last year, the proportion of youth charged in homicide investigations has sharply increased. Police say 13 youth were among those accused in 77 homicide cases last year. This year, 16 youth are accused in 35 homicides.

Youth are accused in some of the city’s most high-profile recent criminal cases.

In July, a 14-year-old boy was charged after he allegedly fatally stabbed a woman in her 70s in an unprovoked attack at a grocery store parking lot in North York.

In August, two 17-year-olds were charged after a man was fatally shot at a Scarborough mall.

That same month, police arrested three suspects, including a 16-year-old, in the death of eight-year-old JahVai Roy, who was struck by a stray bullet while in his home. In September, Toronto police Chief Myron Demkiw called Roy’s death an “unimaginable crime,” and the rise in youth suspects in homicide cases “not acceptable.”

“As a society, we need to do better,” said Demkiw. “This is a time for a call to action for all levels of government and all stakeholders to step up and work collaboratively in a meaningful way to improve community safety and well-being.”

North of the city, York regional police Chief Jim MacSween said last week that younger suspects are increasingly accused in severe crimes. He made the comment after police announced that a 16-year-old was wanted for first-degree murder in a fatal home invasion in Vaughan, Ont., that saw five other suspects arrested.

Abbey knows those kinds of stories all too well, because he was once at the centre of his own.

But youth involved in crime are more than just statistics or headlines, he says – they’re people who often feel voiceless, just like he did.

“It was daunting. The system felt bigger than me,” Abbey says. “I just felt scared, I just remember feeling powerless.”

Abbey grew up in a single-parent household in a low-income, east Toronto neighbourhood in the early 2000s, and says he remembers being exposed to crime as young as six years old. Almost every night of his teens was spent trying to avoid getting shot or seeing people he knew getting involved in shootings, he says. By the time he was 15, he was associated with the Malvern Crew street gang.

“It was a scary time to be a young Black teen,” says Abbey. “I remember that the only safety I felt was with guys who also had guns and guys who didn’t make me feel so small or victimized.”

In 2005, Abbey was arrested for first-degree murder when he was 18 years old. He then spent the next decade in various prisons, going through multiple trials and an appeal until he pleaded guilty to manslaughter, eventually leading to his release in 2018. In total, he spent roughly 11 years behind bars, including all of his twenties.

His time in the justice system is part of why Abbey says he’s working to break the stigma of youth crime by connecting with vulnerable young people face to face, without judgment, so they don’t go through what he did.

“I feel like we’re losing them in the whole ‘thug talk’ – labelling them as thugs then just casting them off to the wind,” says Abbey. “It’s deeper than that.”

“If you continue to label them as thugs, and you make this whole ‘you versus me’ thing, then it’s going to be harder to draw them back.”

Ardavan Eizadirad, an associate professor at Wilfrid Laurier University’s faculty of education, says the choices that lead youth to crime often stem from risk factors including poverty and a lack of housing or employment. That’s why being preventive instead of reactionary to youth crime is key, he says.

“I think the myth is it’s ‘those kids’ or it’s ‘those neighbourhoods,’ which often times are racialized low-income spaces. But the root cause of it is that we need more infrastructure,” said Eizadirad, whose research includes youth violence.

“We need support within those communities and we need a more collaborative effort.”

Eizadirad points to a group he’s involved in called the Youth Association for Academics, Athletics, and Character Education, a Black-led organization that provides local programming, as an example of a resource that provides youth with opportunities in education, athletics and more. Even expanding the Canada Summer Jobs program year-round could help youth engage with their communities, he says.

“I think it’s always presented as a binary of ‘lock them up and throw the key away’ or in the other extreme end, ‘we’re being soft,’ which is why we’re hearing a lot of new pressures for bail reform,” says Eizadirad. “I think it’s a balancing act.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced last month several measures to address overall crime and the issue of repeat offenders, including changes to bail and sentencing laws. Among them were proposed amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act that would expand the range of crimes that could lead to custodial sentences for young people.

While Eizadirad says it’s hard to tell right now what the impact of the federal bill would be, any changes to criminal laws as a whole are a “nuanced conversation” that requires data-informed decision-making and further discussion on community supports.

For Abbey, the key is meaningful mentorship, which he calls his purpose in life.

When he was younger, he never realized just how much his actions would affect the generations that came after him, he says, so now he’s actively involved in community organizations to use his influence for the better.

“If I had a guy like me back then, I would have made decisions out of courage rather than fear,” he says.

Many of his own mentors were fellow inmates in the prison system who inspired him to turn his life around, and now he wants to return the favour, he says.

He has mentees both inside and outside of prison, and he’s always just a phone call away. He encourages his mentees to find healthy outlets to work through their fears so they don’t go down the same path as him.

It’s especially gratifying to work with youth, he says, because he sees himself in them. He knows they see that, too.

“I tell them all the time, if you guys wanna sell chocolate bars and chips, you guys can do that,” says Abbey.

“My message for youth is just that the street life is an illusion and we have so many options to getting to where we want to be and not to fall victim to the labels and the stigmatization that we’ve been hammered with,” he adds.

“We break the stigma by just seeing kids as who they are.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 17, 2025.

Rianna Lim, The Canadian Press