The juvenile justice system needs an overhaul with reforms in the police, the courts, the prisons and even NGOs dealing with young people, according to an inquiry board tasked with looking into a case where two troubled children were denied bail over the alleged theft of €400.
Incarceration should be the very last resort, according to the board’s recommendations. But for this to happen, the government should ensure there are a range of options to imprisonment, such as therapeutic facilities and secure homes, which are either set up from scratch or brought up to standard.
In fact, the report is critical of such services already offered by NGOs and calls for them to be reviewed or be discontinued. It paints a picture of stretched organisations, unable to provide a service that is up to standard.
The board of inquiry was set up by the Children’s Commissioner and consisted of professionals with legal and minor welfare expertise.
The assessment of Appoġġ, the government’s welfare agency, is also not very comforting.
Social workers were burdened with an average caseload of 40 cases per professional, meaning social workers did not have the time to follow a case thoroughly and build an individual meaningful relationship with the children they were overseeing, the inquiry found.
The workload also results in a significant turnover of professionals, which means children frequently have to be shifted from one professional to another.
The board recommends the workload should not be more than 10 to 15 cases per social worker.
With regard to the police, the board recommends the setting up of a unit within the force dedicated to the welfare of young people and also that interrogating officers be given specialised training.
More significantly, it is suggested that a special interrogating protocol be set up for minors. It should be mandatory for minors to speak to lawyers face-to-face before an interrogation. Moreover, they should have with them a professional, youth worker or social worker or a representative from an agency responsible for youth welfare during the interrogation itself.
In cases where young people are under a care order, the police should be obliged to inform the agency responsible for them.
Similarly, legal aid lawyers assigned to young people should have specialised training while the Juvenile Court should start hearing all cases of people under 18, rather than under 16, as is the case now.
The board was set up last August after the case of two minors, a 15-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl, made the headlines when they were denied bail and sent to Corradino Correctional Facility after being charged with stealing €400 from their uncle.
An appeal was successfully filed by Appoġġ, which was legally responsible for the children, who were under care orders because they came from a background of neglect and abuse. The decision came under fire from practitioners in the field, who argued the minors’ rights had been trampled upon.
Five months later, the recommendations of the inquiry were uploaded on the website of the Children’s Commissioner without any public announcement. The report itself is not available but the breadth of the recommendations indicates the extent of the inquiry.
At least one of the recommendations made in the report has already been taken up and should be implemented shortly. The board suggests the youth section at the CCF, known as YOURS, should be moved out of the Paola facilities and that similar facilities should be provided for females.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici said there were plans for this shift to happen in the next three months.
Recommendations
Prisons
No more children at CCF. There should be a therapeutic residence away from Corradino Correctional Facility for minors who break the law.
There should be a variety of options to incarceration, which offer care.
The options should include fostering and intensive fostering, the latter offering a home service with a system that is more rigid than the ones employed by YMCA and Fejda.
The youth section should be taken out of the CCF and similar facilities should be provided for young female prisoners.
Juvenile Court
The age of criminal responsibility should be raised from nine to 14 years.
The Juvenile Court should move out of Valletta and be given more funds to operate.
It should also be extended to cover all young people under 18 years old who would benefit from this court’s informal sittings behind closed doors.
There should be an amendment to the law, which presently provides for cases involving young people charged with an adult to be heard by the regular courts. Minors are minors irrespective of whether they have committed a crime with an adult.
There should be trained lawyers dealing with cases involving minors who are given adequate time to consult with the young people face to face before a hearing.
Bail should be the rule not the exception.
More funds for Juvenile Court.
Government welfare agency
Appoġġ workers have a huge workload of 40 cases per professional. The report is suggesting this should go down to 10 to 15 cases per social worker.
The board also complained of the turnover in professionals seen at Appoġġ, pointing out this often means children get their case transferred from one professional to another.
Appoġġ does not have an effective 24/7 emergency service that can also operate weekends and on feasts.
Police interrogation
There should be mandatory (as opposed to optional) face-to-face consultation between lawyers and minors.
The police should urgently set up a section dealing with child welfare, composed of police officers who would have received adequate training on minors’ rights and how they should be handled.
Interrogating police inspectors should be given training on how to handle minors and there should be at least one officer with this sort of training in every police station.
Interrogation methods should be modified when young people are involved. Moreover, there should be special procedures dealing with under 18s who are under arrest.
Interrogations should always be held in the presence of professionals such as youth workers or social workers from a specialised agency such as Appoġġ.
If minors are under a care order, the agency responsible for them should be informed immediately they are under arrest.
Legal jargon should be simplified in a way that is understood by the youth under arrest
Charges should be accompanied with a report on the circumstances of minors, drawn up by a social worker from Appoġġ.
YMCA
There needs to be a rethink of homes for children so each home is given a specific role.
YMCA facilities need to be reviewed if Appoġġ is to keep using them. The NGO needs to improve on sanitary conditions at its home, the lack of therapeutic services and recreational space. It should also improve the staff-to-client ratio, staff training and the support systems in place for emergencies. If these steps are not taken, the shelter should not be used as it is being used today.
The Fejda and Jean Antide homes also need an infrastructural overhaul. The state needs to involve itself in their administrative running for some time until they reach the desired standards. Therapy is only entrusted in the hands of professionals.
It is obvious there are serious differences between YMCA and Appoġġ. A mediator should help establish a protocol of how they should work together because the problems between the two are having a negative effect on the sector.