Big changes coming for juvenile detention

Implementation of Government’s Child Justice Bill that is expected to go before Parliament by year-end, is going to pose serious challenges for the operations at the state-run juvenile correctional facility for delinquent boys and girls.

That is the caution coming from Principal of the Government Industrial School (GIS) Erwin Leacock, who has been in charge of the facility for the past 19 years.

Leacock told Barbados TODAY the Ministry of Home Affairs has therefore collaborated with UNICEF and brought in a consultant whose job is specifically to focus on assisting the Mia Mottley administration on the best ways to implement the proposed legislation.

“She [the consultant] is looking at preparing a report to accompany the legislation. But this report specifically deals with implementation. It is one thing to lay legislation in Parliament, but the other thing now would be the corresponding action has to be ‘how are you going to do it?’” the GIS head contended.

“As you would appreciate, it is going to be a very challenging exercise…because, here you have an institution that has a legacy of doing things in one particular way; it is going to be a total philosophical change,” he stressed.

Leacock went on to identify an even greater challenge which will face the juvenile correctional institution.

“From the start, the most challenging thing that we are going to have to deal with would be the change of a definition for juvenile. It is going to move from under 16 to under 18.  So therefore, all of the persons who normally would be remanded or sentenced at HMP Dodds, the adult prison, they are going to come here,” he disclosed.

Leacock warned that such a move will result in a more violent type of individual adding to the juvenile population.

“You would have to now check that profile. That’s more issues involving violence…more violently involved issues in that age cohort,” he added.

“Whenever the legislation is passed, they’re coming here, ready or not. Our challenge now is in physical infrastructure…and a priority has to be retraining of staff; because if you are introducing a new philosophy, obviously staff training has to be paramount,” the juvenile correctional centre principal told Barbados TODAY.

Leacock also identified a culture which would have been built up within the institution over time as yet another hurdle in the way of an effective implementation of the pending legislation.

In fact, the GIS principal disclosed that even before modern legislation is enacted, he is already experiencing push back in trying to change the way the 137-year-old facility had been managed.

“And one of my challenges, even in the absence of modern legislation, is trying to change the culture. As Barbadians say, people get set in their ways and  I now have had to, in the absence of legislation, without the support of legislation, try to introduce what will be coming,” he said.

He also attributed a possible link between allegations that he is an autocratic leader, with his efforts to change the way the GIS has been functioning before his time.

Leacock explained that the new Child Justice Bill, which replaces a 1926 law, seeks to bring Barbados in compliance with United Nations’ rules of children deprived of their liberty.

He said Barbados has fallen way behind the rest of the Caribbean with regards to modern legislation, having been one of the first to separate juvenile delinquents from adult prisoners.

“But what we have not kept up-to-date on; what we have lagged on, is the legislation. The OECS [Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States], they have gone, with the assistance of UNICEF and other international agencies, they have gone way ahead of us.  In fact, this modern legislation is modeled after the OECS legislation,” he pointed out.

“One of the challenges for staff and for everybody else in turn, is how do we still do the job that was started in 1883 where children had to be kept in custody, how do we do that without being excessively punitive. And this is not for everybody.”

“There are some people who are not necessarily ideally suited to this environment. They would sometimes interpret that absence of punitive control as their sole resource. But you have now to interact. From my perspective, I don’t only have to keep these children in custody, I also have to raise them,” the juvenile detention centre head added.

Leacock stressed that managing the GIS is a difficult job because, no matter what the crimes may be, the residents are minors.

He noted that while the adult prison at Dodds tends to stop admitting inmates at about 6 p.m., the GIS is a 24-hour, seven days a week operation.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb