Glenda Simms, Contributor
IN THE May 6 issue of the The Gleaner, staff reporter Damion Mitchell alerted us to the fact that there is a significant increase in the number of juveniles who have been arrested for the heinous crimes of murder, rape, carnal abuse and breaking and entering.
The article also pointed out that this criminal behaviour is becoming a feature of some school populations and furthermore, between 1998 and 2002, 293 juveniles were shot and injured and 2,075 children were murdered. These statistics demonstrate that our Jamaican children are over represented in both the category of "perpetrators of crimes" and that of "victims of crimes".
The level of criminality in the Jamaican society must, of necessity, force us to ask some tough questions. In fact, there is a definite disgust with, and intolerance of, the crimes that are perpetuated against decent law-abiding citizens on a daily basis.
The victims of such crimes are less likely to be sympathetic towards any criminal of any age.
Jamaicans are crying out for justice and for freedom from the high levels of crime. They have developed a low tolerance for the inhumane activities that confront them nightly on national television and in the newspapers.
Unfortunately, vigilante justice is happening on too regular a basis. We need to recognise that the energies of vigilantism are easily converted into anti-youth sentiments in situations where youth are over-represented in the arena of vicious crimes.
FAILING OUR CHILDREN
We are at an important social and political crossroads on this issue. Now, more than ever, we need to recognise the developmental needs of children and youth. We cannot continue to allow parental responsibility to be eroded lightly.
Mothers and fathers must be made to do the best that they can for their children and when they deliberately fail to carry out their parental mandate they should be held responsible for the actions of their children.
In an article entitled 'The maximum security adolescent' which appeared in the New York Times magazine, February 10, 2000, writer Margaret Talbot raised a number of issues about how the American justice system treats juvenile offenders. Citing the cases of young offenders who were tried and incarcerated in adult facilities, she points to the dilemma which the society faces.
She argues that 100 years ago progressive reformers agitated for and achieved a separate justice system for juveniles in order that the "best interest of children might be served". However, more recently such deep rooted cultural values have begun to shift and a number of juvenile delinquents have been placed in adult jails.
Talbot argues that this development is unfortunate because adult jails are overpopulated with vicious, hardened criminals who merely prey on the young person and transforms him or her into an even more vicious human being.
Most developed countries, including the United States have had to, at different times, ponder on why crime rates are escalating. Developing countries, such as Jamaica, also agonise about rising crime statistics.
SOCIAL DISLOCATION
In looking at the impact of social dislocation on all sectors of society, Francis Fukuyama in his article 'The great disruption' published in the Atlantic Monthly of May 1999 pointed out that "crimes tend to be committed overwhelmingly by young males aged 15 to 24".
He argues that while men might be genetically predisposed to violence and aggression, their over-representation in crime statistics have multifaceted causation factors in the social environment in which they are raised.
Fukuyama debunked the generally held belief that crime rates are necessarily linked to urbanisation.
In fact, he argued that Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore are "among the most densely populated, overcrowded urban environments in the world, and yet they did not experience rising crime rates as the urbanisation was occurring".
Fukuyama strongly suggests that the human social environment is more closely linked to crime statistics than the physical environment.
It is, therefore, vital for us to take a close look at the societal influences that are creating the young criminals in the Jamaican society.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
Extremely poor children are multiple deprived they are systematically exposed to ill health, poor nutrition, substandard housing, institutions of miseducation and undereducation, sexual and physical abuse and gender based violence meted out to their mothers. On our city streets they present themselves as 'street children' and 'boys on the corner'.
Their face-scape is predomi-nantly male and black. Their female counterpart is largely hidden in the homes, but she is also deprived and sometimes grows up to be quite depraved.
Such children inhabit violent environments and they are found in all the major urban centres of the world in Dakar, Mumbai, Lagos, Johannesburg and Kingston, to name but a few.
Whether the roots of the anti-social and criminal behaviours are psycho-social or biological, poor people are not able to seek the full range of therapeutic approaches that might lead to non-violence and more social and people-friendly behaviours.
The role of poverty in creating dysfunctionality that can result in some of the most bizarre behaviours needs to be researched, acknowledged and dealt with, not in a piecemeal way but with a focused, systematic approach.
If we are to stem the tide of juvenile criminals, we must pay attention to the high levels of gender-based violence, domestic violence and child sexual abuse. These events have intergenerational effects on children, and under those conditions they become both the victims and the perpetrators of crime. These issues need to be dealt with forcefully and we need to have in place interventions that will impact positively on children's welfare at an early stage.
Special attention need to be paid to boys, especially those who grow up in father-absent homes and in communities where the criminal is the leader and the 'venerated one'.
Such vulnerable children need early intervention in a holistic approach to their developmental needs.
Multi-agency efforts are key to these solutions and oftentimes we will discover that there are enough resources to do what we have to if we collaborate and are directed by a vision of equality for all and, most importantly, a love for our children.
In the meantime, we need to ensure that juvenile delinquents and criminals are not treated in the same way that we treat adult criminals.
Juvenile facilities should and must feature clear therapeutic approaches, education and skill development, the building of a strong self-esteem and the discipline of work and chores. They also should be staffed by highly skilled and highly motivated professionals who still have the capacity to care for and nurture the damaged psyche of their clients.
UN CONVENTION
The preamble to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child refers to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and reminds state parties to the Convention that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance. Furthermore, families should be afforded the "necessary protection and assistance' in order that the well-being of the children can be ensured. Defining the child as anyone below the age of 18 years, the Convention seeks to guarantee the rights and freedoms of each child through 54 articles.
Article 40 sets out in clear details how children who are involved in criminal and related activities are to be treated.
THE LOSS OF CHILDHOOD
Our challenge, as a society, will not only be related to how we can find the resources to operationalise the directives of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The greater challenge will be the recovery of childhood for significant numbers of children. These are ones whose childhood have either been tainted or completely lost through the over sexualisation of the society, the commercialisation of young women's bodies, the high levels of child sexual abuse, physical brutalisation, abandonment by parents, the lack of love and security, the absentee parents who have migrated to other countries and the general breakdown of law and order.
Dr. Crawford-Brown, in her seminal work Who Will Save Our Children The Plight of the Jamaican Child in the 1990s, discussed a wide cross-section of issues that affect Jamaican children. Amongst other things, she discussed the plight and conditions of children in adult jails, the structural problems in child welfare and correctional systems and made suggestions on how to keep children out of adult jails.
Dr. Crawford-Brown's work is as relevant and urgent today as it was in the '90s.
In spite of the social realities of present day Jamaican society, the state must at all times recognise childhood as a distinct stage of life and children and juveniles must, under no condition, be incarcerated or housed in facilities that expose them to dysfunctional adults.
State-run institutions ought to be held responsible to rehabilitate young people in all the many ways possible.
We must be courageous enough to focus on the social and psychological needs rather than the offences.
We must not forget that juveniles in adult facilities are vulnerable to sexual exploitation and physical assaults.
Nor must we forget that "childhood is a distinct phase of life and that adolescents, in particular, move through distinct developmental stages that cause them to experience many moments of social, physical and psychological disequilibrium".
The state and civil society need to revisit the various ways in which children are being brutalised and criminalised in the Jamaican society.
These atrocities encompass but are not limited to beatings in the homes, physical and verbal abuse in the schools, sexual abuse in all the institutions designed to create a civilised society home, church, school and the workplace.
Children deserve the best social climate in order to grow and develop into reasonable, kind and considerate human beings.
It is the duty of each of us to do all that is possible to create a more caring and compassionate environment in which our children can hold on to and validate the very essential stage of development - CHILDHOOD.
Dr. Glenda P. Simms is the executive director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs.
