Although the number of recorded juvenile offenders is low, juvenile justice advocates are calling for a less punitive approach to be designed to rehabilitate youth offenders, saying that adult-prison conditions are not acceptable for children and can easily serve as training grounds for criminal behaviour.
Children in conflict with the law are practically treated as minor adults in Guyana: they are detained at police stations across the country and are locked up in cells that human rights advocates have deemed unsuitable for adults. The Juvenile Offenders Amendment Act, passed two years ago, makes provisions for Holding Centres for Juveniles. Section 20 (a) of the Act says that the [subject] Minister-the Minister of Home Affairs-may establish and maintain as many centres as may be necessary as the Holding Centres for Juveniles for the reception, care and custody of children and young persons under the orders of the court or for any other appropriate reasons as the Minister may determine.
Previously, juveniles were held separately from adults at what was then termed “places of detention” set up at Eve Leary and also at an East Coast Demerara village. But those provisions ended some time ago and female juvenile offenders are currently detained at East La Penitence police station and male offenders at East the Ruimveldt outpost.
Stabroek News was reliably informed that a Holding Centre for juveniles has been constructed at Sophia but has been sitting idle for months. Efforts to contact Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee were unsuccessful.
According to Karen De Souza, Coordinator of Red Thread, a lot of juveniles are in the lock-ups for wandering, so “they have not committed a criminal offence.” But said that in spite of “all the talk,” the children are treated like adults and she added that she has seen no real moves to change the current situation.
Horrendous
In a recent interview, De Souza referred to the East La Penitence police station as “horrendous,” stressing that it is no place to hold young girls. She opined that it is out of order for the authorities to be locking up adult women and juvenile girls there. She said too that the conditions at East Ruimveldt are no better. “I don’t believe that any prisoner should be held like that, much less juveniles,” she said.
De Souza pointed out that police are not authorised to question a juvenile without an adult present but it is happening because of how the system is currently designed. She made reference to the recent case involving the teen boy who was tortured while in police custody at the Leonora Police Station, saying she has no idea how a statement could be extracted from a juvenile under those conditions and then be used in court. “I don’t know of anywhere else besides Ruimveldt that there are any real provisions for holding juveniles anywhere in this country,” she added.
If limited resources are the argument against setting up the centres, De Souza said there is no need to have multiple juvenile holding facilities, noting that it seems more plausible to do what they have done in the city and designate particular police stations as holding centres. But that would merely be the beginning, since, according to her, a lot more has to be done to address the conditions of the provisional holding centres.
With respect to the police stations, she said that “they continue to be places of detention, not to mention places of torture.” De Souza noted that what is happening is not acceptable. “I don’t know of any convention or even our law that permits them to hold juveniles how they are currently holding them, which is locked down in a concrete cell,” she added.
Realistically, she said the challenge is about identifying and appropriately staffing a centrally located place so that each geographic area can have some kind of access to a holding centre. She said too that the staff has to be specialised staff, reiterating the point that the current juvenile arrangements are totally unsatisfactory.
Inadequate
Co-President of the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) Mike McCormack views the solutions being employed to the problem of juvenile offenders as inadequate. He said many girls are being detained at La Penitence and an equal number of boys at Ruimveldt. “These are not solutions, detention should be a last resort for children,” he declared, noting that the conditions of the current detention centres pose a problem. He emphasised that children should be kept separately from adults.
He recalled that girls were at one time being housed at a place at East Coast Demerara, which he termed suitable because it moved them away from the city, and more importantly away from their vulnerable circumstances. However, he said the building has since been given another use. He said that juvenile justice advocates are not particularly calling for institutions that meet strict international standards, adding that the issue is whether provisions are being made for juvenile offenders to be cared for and ultimately rehabilitated.
McCormack said children should be treated as victims and not perpetrators of crime. To him, the system is currently treating juveniles as minor adults. He said it is important for the measures being taken against children to include provisions where they are in contact with their parents and with their peers, adding that the environment they are housed in should allow for some recreational activities even as they move away from a rough past.
He said the state ought to designate a center somewhere convenient and house children there, stressing again that prison-like conditions are not ideal for children. McCormack said the authorities can make special arrangements for juveniles and “move away from the punitive arrangements that are currently in place and or keep them away from anything that looks like a jail.”
Stabroek News also spoke with a counselor, who, requesting anonymity that the current conditions for holding juveniles are not conducive for rehabilitation. She explained that the idea of juvenile justice is not to have juveniles turn into criminals. From the time a juvenile offender is picked up, she said, the rehabilitation processes should commence. She said rehabilitation helps the juvenile offender to realise the consequences of the committed crime and to undo the inflicted damage. She said a juvenile age is an impressionable age and stressed that “hurt people, hurt people,” while adding that successful rehabilitation depends on how juveniles are handled.
According to the counselor, children should not be put in a place where they become victims. She said a lot of stories come out of the current places where juveniles are being housed and she described the conditions as being less than ideal and “certainly not in keeping with a juvenile justice system.”
