‘Jail block’ ultimatum - Lock down inhumane child penalty chamber – INDECOM

The reputed ‘jail block’, where wards at the Rio Cobre Juvenile Correctional Centre are sent for punishment, even being stripped to their underwear, should immediately be scrapped, a watchdog agency has said.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Hugh Faulkner, head of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), argued that the law allowed for a child who committed an offence should be sent to the correctional facility.

However, he is calling for the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) to review the practice of placing children already in detention in further confinement as a means of punishment.

“We are saying that the ‘jail block’ should not be part of the infrastructure of the Rio Cobre Correctional Centre,” said Faulkner.

“It is exacerbated by the fact that they are locked up in such a manner that tragedy might occur if the keys were not accessible.”

A special report on the juvenile correctional facility cited one instance in June 2020 in which a ward was placed in the jail block where he had a seizure, but the key could not be found. It was later discovered that a member of staff had left the premises with the key to have a duplicate made.

HUGE RISK

“This is a huge risk in terms of fire or any emergency or natural disaster,” the INDECOM boss said.

The watchdog also reported that arbitrary and excessive punishments were meted out to boys for trifling misdemeanours such as “talking back” or being absent from dormitory at lockdown time.

The report was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.

Pushing for policy change, Faulkner urged lawmakers to review Section 24 of the Child Care and Protection Act. The legislation gives the court the power to make a correctional order in relation to a child who is deemed “uncontrollable”. One of the options of the court is to send the child to a correctional centre.

Urging policymakers to amend the law, the head of INDECOM said that a correctional facility should be housing children who were in conflict with the law and had been proven to be guilty of a criminal offence.

He said that a child who is deemed “uncontrollable” has not committed a criminal offence and has not been found guilty of a criminal offence, yet the correctional order used by the court sends that child to a correctional facility as if he or she had committed a criminal offence.

He warned that placing an “uncontrollable” juvenile in a facility with other children, who had committed, in some instances, serious criminal offences, was ill advised.

“We are urging the authorities to treat this category of children as a matter of urgency and have this resolved, and, in fact, I believe a proper action would be a review of the Child Care and Protection Act, Section 24,” he advised.

Faulkner pointed out that there were 16 girls at the South Camp Juvenile Remand and Correctional Centre who have been sent to the facility on correctional order. Another six boys are at Rio Cobre and one at the Metcalfe Street Juvenile Correctional Centre.

Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of National Security, Senator Matthew Samuda, told The Gleaner that he would respond to issues raised by INDECOM in its special report today. Samuda has ministerial oversight responsibility for the correctional facilities.