JSC: Stop dumping kids!

This was the call made in the “Third Report of the Joint Select Committee (JSC) on Human Rights, Equality and Diversity for the Second Session of the Eleventh Parliament on the Treatment of Child Offenders”, chaired by Community Development Minister, Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly.

“During the site visits to each institution there was a common factor that many child offenders housed at these facilities did not receive parental visits and were abandoned by their families upon entry to these facilities,” the report said.

Lamenting a lack of family involvement in the welfare of children at the institutions, the report urged fresh legislation to prohibit child abandonment by their families, to encourage families’ participation in the lives of their children and to facilitate their rehabilitation process.

“The Committee recommends that the Office of the Prime Minister seeks the assistance of the Ministry of the Attorney General to draft legislation to prevent parents from abandoning their children at the (St Michael’s and St Jude’s) rehabilitation centres and YTC.

“Parental involvement plays a critical role in the successful rehabilitation of a child offender.” The report hit St Michael’s for its poor record keeping – which it said is key to the development of individual care plans – including being unable to say how many boys it had housed. “Poor record management was evidenced by the inability to submit statistics of the number of child offenders at the institution for the past five years.

The Children’s Authority advised the Committee that the records of some young men were missing.” The committee said St Michael’s was not meeting its core duty of rehabilitating the offenders amongst its young residents.

“There was no rehabilitative programme.” Further those boys deemed offenders had little or no interaction with the other youths, due to behavioural issues and the fear they would negatively influence the others.

The report lamented a lack of cultural activities for the boys at St Michael’s and urged that help be sought from the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts. The committee bemoaned a lack of statistical data including on recidivism rates among youngsters, and cited officials from the Office of the Prime Minister. “The officials also indicated that the high recidivism rate was possibly due in part to community influence and the lack of parental support in the home.” Pupils from St Michael’s and St Jude’s faced problems finding places to live after leaving these homes, at the mandatory age of 18 years old. The report lamented that the YTC boys have difficulties getting jobs when they leave the facility, and urged collaboration with trade schools such as YTEPP and organisations like CEPEP to further their vocational skills.

“This would allow for the offenders to be able to utilise their vocation as a means to secure productive futures and help to reduce recidivism.” The report also lamented the tardy resolution of allegations of abuse.

“The Committee is concerned that there is an absence of a human resource policy to address the issue of abuse, as evidence submitted indicated that there were two reported abuse cases at St Michael’s over the past five years and 21 abuse cases per year at St Jude’s.

“It was noted that the staff allegedly involved in abuse cases from one year ago were placed on suspension until investigations were completed by the Statutory Authorities Service Commission.”