Dr. Carolyn Gomes, executive director at Jamaicans For Justice, says the level at which wards abscond is rather disturbing.

She told The Sunday Gleaner that the mere fact that children can leave at will from these institutions that are dubbed places of safety, is an indicator that they are not safe. "A place of safety is supposed to be a controlled environment. It must concern me because children are placed in places of safety and can run away at will, can come in and out at will. How can that be a safe place?"

Allison Anderson, chief executive officer at the Child Development Agency (CDA), confessed that outside of moral suasion, there is nothing the staff at the homes can do to force the children to stay, because the use of physical force is not permitted. "How are you going to stop a child from leaving? Are you going to physically restrain them? ... You can't," she emphasised.

Ms. Anderson made it abundantly clear that the CDA is in charge of the affairs of institutions that give care and offer safety, and which are not prisons.

"You don't have high-security walls; you don't have razor wires; you are not running a prison (so), what do you do?"

Minima Smith is still angry following her daughter's death last year after being lured away from a place of safety in Granville, Trelawny.

Fourteen-year-old Channel Mitchell's body was discovered near an area of Portland called No Man's Land, three weeks after she went missing.

"... Something is wrong up there and they need to check it out," Smith said, adding that she had been told of regular absconding among wards.

Smith says authorities later revealed that the youngster had absconded with a group of six girls from the institution. While at least one had returned, she was unable to get information from the other youngster on the details of her daughter's situation.

"Is not she alone did leave; it was about six of them. They say they leave with a man who have a stall near the compound. After the girls dem leave, him can't be found. The police know about it, the home know about it, and nobody called me. She left on the ninth and the only time they called me was on the 28th, to identify the body."

But CDA regional head, Sydney Grant, points to limitations of the facilities, and the fact that, often, it is very difficult to constrain the girls.

Recently, he denied rumours of a batch of more than 20 girls leaving the Granville Place of Safety, noting that such an occurrence would have been brought to his and the police's attention immediately following the home's routine checks - head count, three times per day.

He allows, instead, that the total could have been "accumulated over time" as several of the girls are repeat absconders.

"Absconding is quite frequent because we can't really lock them up. Some go and come."

Among the reasons he lists are, trespassing by the community members, as persons often cut perimeter fencings to gain entry, and the wards' own frustrations with the system.

"There are occasions when they are dressed and ready to go to court, and the police don't turn up, so if they get the chance, they will abscond. There are some who have not had any visitors, and there are those who just will not stay anywhere."

He says there is a 50 per cent return rate.

"Some are returned by parents, or police, and some will go and come back on their own."

He said this was made worse by the specific situations, as often, more vulnerable girls are influenced by more hard-core offenders, whom the facilities are often forced to house, pending instructions from the courts.

"It's a big task separating the offenders. Some should not be there, but we have to keep them there together."

A Health Ministry survey ('Faces of Residential Care', Morrison, Rankine and Toby, 1999), also criticised the practice of keeping wards of varying circumstances together, and over long periods of time.