>>510889204There's actually no requirement. Judges make a conscious choice to do this. There's nothing holding them accountable one way or the other.
As for why, if they consistently convicted non-whites for the crimes they committed our prisons would become overloaded with nothing but nonwhite convicts and advocacy groups would start crying racism.
In this particular case they're forced to be super lenient not because of race but because of age, the kid is 14. You can't try a juvenile as an adult in Ontario and there's a whole slew of special rules governing how juveniles can be tried and sentenced federally.
Several generations of conservatives have lost elections campaigning to amend these rules. Organized crime sees a glaring loophole and goes out of its way to target youths and press them into crime, because they'll step through the revolving door and be right back out onto the streets in a few months. Used to be they'd stake out highschools, jump teenagers on their way home and press them into being drug mules. Now stealing cars and killing white people is the name of the game so they put a knife in their hand and send them to terrorize neighbourhoods instead.