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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
"Juvenile Justice System Exacerbating Youth Violence"
By Tavarrie Smith, President and Chief Legal Counsel at Project Youth Justice
Jan 27, 2017 - 12:22:29 AM
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Nassau, Bahamas - Project Youth Justice, a legal aid service organisation specifically for youth who are in conflict with the law, is disheartened by the incidences of violence witnessed in our schools last week. Events like this illustrate the need for a fully developed juvenile justice system that is focused on providing restorative justice and alternative sentencing interventions for juveniles. Today, our juvenile justice system– or lack thereof– is exacerbating the problem of youth violence, where there is little concern for rehabilitation and where our correctional institutions have become universities for more acute antisocial behavior.
While we do not know the specific history of the young people involved in last week’s school incident, we do know that antisocial behavior does not usually begin with extreme violence and that misbehavior in school can be an accurate predictor of future criminality. In their profile of sentenced inmates at Her Majesty’s Fox Hill Prison, researchers from the University of the Bahamas found that of the 44% of inmates who were expelled from high school, 33% were expelled for fighting and another 22% for bad behavior. We believe that this signals that an early identification of antisocial behavior in school, along with evidence-based rehabilitation programming, can alter the path of these young people.
Project Youth Justice also notes the comments made by the Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Hon. Jerome Fitzgerald, as well as by Progressive Liberal Party Chairman, Mr. Bradley Roberts. Similarly, we listened intently today to Free National Movement candidate for Mt. Moriah, Marvin Dames’ statement on crime that party’s plan to tackle crime.
While responses to these kinds of incidents must be firm, it is important not to criminalize our young people or to militarize our schools– turning them into maximum security compounds– especially when our juvenile justice system does not currently provide restorative justice or alternative means of sentencing as interventions. We must avoid transforming our public school system into a pipeline that funnels our young people into the formal criminal justice system to be abused by adult inmates and conditioned into hardened criminals.
Project Youth Justice has been encouraged by the Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Legal Affair’s support for our Teen Court Pilot Programme, which is being funded by the U.S. State Department’s 2016 Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF).
Teen Court is a diversion program for juveniles that have been arrested and have admitted guilt for their crime. These teens choose to be sentenced by a jury of their peers instead of going through the formal criminal justice system. Teen Court assigns constructive consequences that are designed to help the defendant understand why their behaviour was wrong, repair the harm they caused, and help them make better choices in the future. Case studies of this program and other intervention programs like it have shown remarkable results in changing the behavior of young people.
We have been working closely with Attorney-General Allyson Maynard-Gibson, QC herself to realize this pilot programme. The Office of the Attorney-General has committed in writing to identifying a representative to sit on the Board of Directors for the programme and to work to establish a system to review and refer cases that might be best disposed of through the pilot programme. Eventually, we also hope to engage the Ministry of Education and the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
We implore all Bahamians to embrace the opportunity to save our young people through innovative and evidence-based programming instead of relying solely the militarization of our public schools or on punitive solutions to antisocial behavior. We will continue to see a rise in extreme violence among young people unless we provide alternative interventions for juveniles as one way to curb this unfortunate conduct.
Project Youth Justice was founded in 2014 as a non-profit organisation devoted to protecting vulnerable youth, advocating for the rights and fair treatment of youth who come in conflict with the law, promoting the implementation of international standards and best practices for youth justice, and enforcing and protecting the interests and legal rights of youth in The Bahamas. Over the past 2 years, we have worked with many stakeholders with the aim of providing an intervention-based and alternative sentencing approach towards helping youth in conflict with the law. Our focus is the promotion of rehabilitative and community-based services, legal-aid, educational assessment, assisted employment placement, mentorship and psychosocial treatment as an appropriate alternative to incarceration.
© Copyright 2017 by thebahamasweekly.com
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