‘Chronic situation’ for young offenders

HMP Northward

(CNS): A Grand Court judge described the lack of suitable accommodation for young people in the criminal justice system as a “sad and chronic situation” when he was forced to remand another teenager in custody to HMP Northward because there was nowhere else for him to go.

The judge’s comments came less than a week after the chief justice urged government to deal with the pressing need for secure accommodation for young people after four girls in care, with no criminal history, found themselves facing criminal charges because the state could not provide them with a safe environment.

In court Monday Justice Charles Quin, dealing with the two teenagers charged with a street mugging, raised his concerns about the lack of appropriate accommodation for young offenders or, as in this case, young people who have not yet been convicted.

Although one of the youngsters was bailed to a safe home environment, the second young man does not have access to a suitable safe place where he can be bailed until his trial. Although he has not been convicted of any crime, the youngster has already served more than four months in an adult prison as a result of various delays in the case coming to trial.

“This is a very sad state of affairs,” Justice Quin said, as he was forced to send the young man back to Northward. He made it clear, however, that if there was somewhere suitable for him to go he would be “let out”.

One of the main problems is that a new secure accommodation unit at the Bonaventure Boys home in West Bay, designed for young people in the criminal justice system to be accommodated, has been taken over by former female residents in care at the Francis Bodden Girls Home.

During the opening of the Grand Court last week Chief Justice Anthony Smellie related a sad series of events that led to four girls, who were in the state system through no fault of their own, engaging in criminal activity while in care. They are now resident at the secure accommodation in West Bay facing charges ranging from assault causing bodily harm to disorderly conduct.

The country’s top judge said that the issue of secure accommodation has been a problem for years but it has been compounded by the passage of the Children’s Law, which leaves magistrates in particular struggling to deal with young offenders in the absence of appropriate physical facilities which are required by the law to be in place.

“The Children Law now places a further statutory obligation upon government where it empowers and requires the court to place a child who is ‘in care’ of the state in secure accommodation,” he said, adding that it must be an immediate priority.

The chief justice said that a child who may be in care through no fault of his own, where parents are simply unable to provide a healthy or safe environment for the child due, for example, to drug abuse, must be given a safe place to stay. He said older girls are often placed at the Francis Bodden Girls’ Home (FBGH) because no suitable relative or foster parent is available. But the incidents at the end of last year demonstrated that the home is not safe or secure

“In late November, four female residents at FBGH absconded. They returned a few days later apparently under the influence of drugs and speaking of sexual exploits,” the senior judge said during his address. Because there was nowhere for them to go, he said, they stayed at Francis Bodden and the next night barricaded themselves in a room where they were smoking ganja.

“It was clear that DCFS was unable to provide a safe environment for girls who had not previously engaged in criminal activity; where in at least one case, the child was in care due to a family breakdown,” he said. “The girls remained at FBGH despite its obvious inadequacies as a secure facility.” The judge explained that in December the same four girls “violently absconded from the home” and are now facing criminal charges.

“To put this in stark terms, girls with no prior criminal convictions have engaged in or been exposed to criminal activity while in the care of the Department of Child and Family Services,” the chief justice said. Pointing to the problems arising out of a lack of suitable facilities, he said it was “unacceptable that the situation should be allowed to get even worse, due to a lack of funding”.

H explained that because of this series of events, the secure accommodation facility at the Bonaventure Boys’ Home is now hosting the female detainees.

Government had set aside funds for secure accommodation and had planned to create a young offenders centre based on the Missouri Model during the UDP administration but budget constraints are understood to have undermined those plans.

CNS contacted the community affairs ministry, recently taken over by Osbourne Bodden, at the beginning of this week for an update on the situation regarding plans for a secure unit for young offenders but we are still waiting for a response.