Don’t we care about our children anymore?
Dear Mrs Macaulay,
Did you hear about the school children that policeman told the judge are filling up police lock-ups. Before, this kind of thing was a scandal. How come it’s not a scandal now when we have a special law for children? The judge did not say it was wrong. The Children’s Advocate and the Child Development Agency (CDA), the media and your organisation and others for children were also dumb, or is it numb? What is happening to these children? Don’t we care any more?
-PP
Dear PP,
I appreciate the fact that you were shocked about the report, which was on the front page of the Daily Observer on March 31. I was shocked also, that no report was made of any comment by the judge, and indeed by the superintendent (whose comments were otherwise sensitive and understanding of the situations some children are left in by their parents) about the fact that it was wrong for any child to be kept locked up with adults.
It is kismet (if I can so describe our common shock considering the subject), because I decided as soon as I read the report to write about the matter, even if I received no correspondence about it. So thank you for your letter. The silence of the nation about this serious state of affairs – that children in conflict with the law are again being kept in police lock-ups is astonishing and a matter of grave concern. Remember, these children have not yet been tried and convicted, they are awaiting trial for the offences they are alleged to have committed.
It has always, in modern times, been the case that children should not be confined with adult offenders, whether they are on remand or are already convicted. If circumstances cause a child to be held in an adult facility, the officer in charge of such a facility must be scrupulous in ensuring that, that child is left in a place separate from any adult there confined.
Knowing, what our police lock-ups are like – the general overcrowding; the close confinement; the noise with shouted statements in all kinds of obscene language and about all kinds of matters – it is my opinion that no child should ever be exposed to such environments, even if held in a separate cell. Such a child is already experiencing “coping” problems, and the influences even if only verbal that this child would be exposed to, or rather bombarded with, would be destructive rather than supportive of the best interests of that child.
What really worries me is the fact that recommendations had been made at least two or three years ago by a committee set up by government but with a wide membership of government agencies, NGO’s and experts, for the establishment of male and female children’s “places of confinement” (phrase mine). Such places, it was recommended, would be run on a principle of restorative justice where the children in custody therein would be rehabilitated, in every respect. Well, none of these places have been constructed. I must say that when the stadiums for Cricket World Cup were being constructed and renewed, I commented to several people that so much money was being spent for that, and yet the resources (smaller by far) to ensure the proper and timely implementation of the Child Care and Protection Act, three years after theAct came into effect, has still not been provided by government. If children are our future why has the Children’s Registry taken so long to be established and become operational? Will children who live with abuse benefit from the stadiums? How can they, if they are dead or maimed or confined in a jail or police lock-up or enduring further suffering in a remand centre or place of safety? Are children our future, or are stadiums?
Anyway, what does the Child Care and Protection Act say about the confinement of children who have not been convicted for an offence?
It provides that, if a child is at a police station because he/she is alleged to have committed an offence, arrangements must be made to ensure that the child does not associate with any adult who is not jointly charged with the same offence as the child and who is not a relative of the child. This stricture even extends to when the child is being driven to and from court, or remand centre, or place of safety, or waiting in a court building before going into and after leaving a court.
The Act also provides that when a child is arrested with or without a warrant, and the child cannot be taken before a court immediately, the officer or sub-officer in charge of the police station, must inform the government agency responsible for the care and protection of children – that is the CDA – of the child’s arrest. The officer must also check into the alleged offence, and with or without sureties, release the child on a recognisance being made by the child or by his/her parent or guardian, on bail in a sum the officer considers sufficient to ensure the child’s attendance in court.
This should be done except when the charge is murder or some other grave crime, or, if in the officer’s opinion, the child ought to be removed from an association with a known criminal or prostitute, or, the officer has reason to believe that if released, the ends of justice would be defeated (whatever this could possibly be).
It provides further that when a child in conflict with the law is not released on station bail, the CDA must ensure that the child is detained in a “juvenile” remand centre, until taken to a court.
The Act also provides that when a court is remanding or committing a child for trial, who is retained in custody, that court must send such a child to the custody of a “juvenile” remand centre, named in the commitment, to be kept there for the period ordered by the court. But, the Act also provides that if the child is 14 years and over, the court need not so confine the child if the child is so unruly, that it would be too dangerous for a juvenile remand centre, or is so depraved in character, that the child is not a fit person to be detained in such a place. If this is the case, the court must so certify, and may then commit the child to a place stated in the commitment warrant, which may be an adult correctional centre.
Such commitment orders made by a court can be revoked or varied, and an application made to it or to another court in the same parish, which has a like jurisdiction. You will have noticed that nowhere in the Act does it permit children to be kept in police lock-ups, but rather, the Act gives to the police wide powers to grant bail even on only the recognisance of the child arrested.
I trust that the CDA, which is also plagued with the problem of insufficient resources, will try to ensure that the provisions relating to children in conflict with the law are consistently followed by ensuring that all officers and sub-officers in charge of police stations really understand the law, and their powers thereunder, and the rule that they must act in the best interests of each child apprehended and brought into their custody. Our judges must also ensure that the law is obeyed to the letter by all, especially when a child clearly already “damaged” is brought before them on a charge. Let us try to safeguard the future of our children and the country, by trying to reduce the number of children who are irreparably injured/damaged by a failure to apply the law passed for their protection. Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law and a women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions and comments via email to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com or fax to 968-2025. We regret we cannot supply personal answers.