GIS move applauded

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Supreme Counselling for Personal Development Shawn Clarke agrees with Government’s move to release several wards of the Government Industrial School (GIS) earlier than scheduled. In fact, he suggests that it’s an “injustice” to send children to the institution for simply “wandering”.

However, he is hoping that these children are not sent back to the same home environments which may have contributed to the delinquency that sent them there in the first place. Clarke believes the youths should first be exposed to mandatory counselling and mentorship programmes.

Last week, Home Affairs Minister Edmund Hinkson revealed that the number of children at GIS was down to under 30 after another batch of seven from the girls’ and boys’ facililities were released two weeks ago. Hinkson made a strong case for an overhaul of how the criminal justice system treats juveniles, as he addressed the New Directions for Youth Justice Conference, hosted by the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus Institute for Gender and Development Studies the Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management.

The Minister said there were now 11 females and 17 males between the two schools, and noted that there were twice that number when he became Minister 30 months ago.

“I am quite sure that the Minister would not have released a young person who would have been involved, or suspected to be involved in serious crime. But to have a young person imprisoned at the Government Industrial School (GIS) for something as simple as wandering I think that that is really an injustice to the young person,” Clarke said.

“The reality is that you might have a young person who is living in a household where every night there is a lot of quarreling and fighting and there could be a drug trade going on in the home that this child could no longer deal with it.

“But to get up and to walk away from what is happening to clear his thoughts might be his only avenue of dealing with the situation. So then to be dragged before the law courts and to be sentenced to the Government Industrial School for two, three, five years for wandering, is an injustice to the child,” he added.

However, Clarke said it would be wrong to release the young people from GIS without any kind of mechanism, structure or system put in place to help them.

He suggested that the charges should be summoned to report to a psychologist or for some other professional counselling.

“After the child has gone through counselling with the psychologist, then we should have a national mentorship programme where that child should be attached to a mentor to work on other social and developmental aspects of his/her life to get that child on the right path.

Hinkson also promised that Government intended to change what he described as an outdated child justice system by the middle of this year, through the tabling of a new Child Justice Bill. anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb