UNICEF reports on weakened juvenile system in Guyana

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has stated that Guyana’s juvenile justice system has not been “running smoothly” for children, particularly those who are offenders.

In a recently-released country report, UNICEF said the juvenile system in Guyana was not exclusive to children, explaining that there was no separate Judge or Magistrate who would attend to juvenile cases, but, in some instances, a court is temporarily appointed as a “juvenile court”.

Guyana has no special skills training for officers of the Court, such as Prosecutors, Magistrates and Judges working with children, which can lead to lack of understanding of how to address child-related matters and to manage other court officers, such as Prosecutors, lawyers and social workers who may not always be sensitive to the child’s needs, the report added.

Subsequently, it underscored that a lack of human and financial resources has made the juvenile branch unable to execute its mandate, noting also that the unit has no internal capacity to investigate all the crimes that are committed against and by children in Guyana, and “when it tries to cooperate with regional authorities, lack of communication and increased bureaucracy become a bottleneck”.

Lack of coordination

The report further highlighted problems with coordination in the juvenile justice system. “A well-functioning system requires a clear understanding of the systemic structures and strong interagency coordination. However, this coordination does not work smoothly for children, and key stakeholders in this process voiced their concerns over the weaknesses in the system,” the report outlined.

According to the country report, children may be delayed for extended periods in holding centres and are sometimes sent to the New Opportunity Corps (NOC) without a probation report or birth certificate. Some 32 per cent of children are sentenced without a probation report.

“One anecdotal report cites a case where a child was placed before the court on a capital offence and was left for more than three years within the system, which resulted in him facing trial at age 18, the age of an adult. The child was subsequently tried as an adult,” it related, lobbying for the minimum age for criminal responsibility to be raised to an internationally acceptable level.

“Establish additional juvenile detention and rehabilitation facilities, particularly in … hinterland region, and ensure regular independent monitoring and inspection of all facilities in which children and youth are placed to ensure that Convention-compliant standards of treatment and care are maintained,” the report said. Further, it recommended that the system made use, if relevant, of the technical assistance tools developed by the United Nations Inter-agency Panel on Juvenile Justice and its members, including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC); UNICEF; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and Non-Governmental Organisations, as well as seek technical assistance in the area of juvenile justice from members of the Panel.

It also suggested the provision of adequate diversionary options for children as part of wider reforms in the court system in order to ensure that detention was the last resort, while lobbying for adequate human, technical and financial resources to be allocated to ensuring that children in contact with the law receive free legal advice and representation.

The report stated that children in contact with the law have become a concern in Guyana, with data for the number of such children coming from two different sources: the Juvenile Holding Centre and the NOC. In 2014, there were 214 boys and girls in the Juvenile Holding Centre, a number that is slightly higher than the previous year’s figure.

“Out of the 831 children and adolescents admitted in the Juvenile Holding Centre between 2011 and 2014, 70 per cent were boys. Most of the boys were admitted accused of theft (break, enter and larceny). For girls, wandering was the main cause of admission,” it emphasised.

“In September 2015, 84 children and adolescents were residents in the New Opportunity Corps (NOC), 55 per cent of them boys. Among those who were sentenced, 56 per cent were due to wandering and 33 per cent due to crimes related to theft. Further, crimes involve assault and possession of narcotics, among others.”

Challenges

The report stated that the most probable and recurrent factor that influences children to commit acts against the law was poverty and lack of economic opportunities. “The economic situation of some families is a major determinant for some children to steal or commit small non-violent crimes.”

It also noted that the relationship between parents and children is becoming so problematic, that some parents do not know how to handle their children and the solution found for some is to report boys and girls to the Police as they were wandering.

While there are calls to remove wandering from the statute books, many see it as a precursor to committing various crimes, and for some families, it becomes a solution to fix a problem that parents do not know how to solve.

According to the report, “Impunity and lack of law enforcement create a perception in adolescents that they cannot and do not need to follow the rules, opening spaces for them to commit crimes.”

“When children realise there is little or no form of sanctions for their negative behaviours, they will feel empowered to exercise such negative forms of attitude or behaviours against whom they desire. For instance, interviewees had mentioned anecdotal reports of older children threatening teachers and attacking younger siblings, and even their parents and relatives,” it said. The Government of Guyana has no public rehabilitation facility to provide the relevant care and treatment services to children and adolescents who are affected by drug and alcohol use. The private resident facilities that do exist have a high enrolment cost attached and some families can ill afford to pay because of their economic circumstance.