A four-day workshop to examine the Juvenile Justice System and the various stages of its review is being held in Dominica.
The workshop, which began on Tuesday, is being held for those who provide services to young people who have brushes with law such as probation and police officers who work with children, magistrates, police prosecutors, child protection officers and representatives from juvenile facilities and youth-centered organizations.
“They will be able to more effectively meet their mandate under the new legislation that is going to be passed,” Facilitator, attorney-at-law, Jacqueline Sealy-Burke said on Wednesday. “As you know a new Child Justice Bill is soon going to be before the parliament for passage and the expectation is that when it’s passed is that with this training and other trainings that have been held today, that the persons who have to actually implement the legislation will be better equipped to do so.”
Magistrate Gloria Augustus said that one of the key objectives of an ongoing legal reform project is improving the regulatory framework of the Juvenile Justice System.
“Another is capacity building for effective administration of juvenile justice,” she stated. “We need to be familiar with the key implementation issues to ensure that effective administration of juvenile justice takes place.”
Augustus stated further that the workshop will look at other key areas of the Juvenile Justice System as provided for in the legislation.
She hopes that the training received will help participants with the knowledge, leadership and coordination necessary for reform.
“Through the law there will be changes in the way we do things, it’s no longer business as usual and therefore courts, police stations and probation, we have to get ready for that,” Magistrate Augustus indicated.
She urged participants to take the training seriously and look forward to the reform process, “that our children so badly need.”
“We are optimistic that this is the legislation that we will be operating on very soon and therefore because it is very different from what we are in fact operating on now, we have to get ready for all those changes,” she stated.
She explained that juvenile justice is a process and not an event, “Therefore there are several issues and several players, and throughout the life of the project which is quickly coming to a final close.”
The workshop is being held by the government of Dominica in collaboration with the Organization of the Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) USAID Juvenile Reform Project and funded by United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).
work shop again? I need to see in the news what is the action plan 6 months after these workshops.
The aim of these workshops is to just buy lunch and give those hotels use for their conference room.
SMH
I suggested a few days ago, let’s rename Nature Isle to Workshop Isle. This little place must have, Dollar for Dollar, the most workshop in the world but than again that goes well with a government with loads of talk but no action.
This is also part of a bigger social problem. WE say there is development here. yes infrastructure etc, but there has been MAJOR breakdown in many social pillars and institutions. Children with barely any broughtupsy having children who are worse. Children allowed to leave school without graduating and earning passes in their subjects. These same children will not be hired because they choose to not finish school and engage in criminal or adult activities before their time which proves to be a setback. Why should a 3rd or 4th or 5th former be allowed to have a child when she gets pregnant? she should be focusing on self improvement and only getting herself ready for leaving school and finding a good job and career. Young men should not be leaving school to ride scooters and sell drugs. Then years after they get vex because noone wants to employ them. Parents need to assume roles of parents and not friends. Schools should be allowed to physically punish children as done in days of old.
I bet NO rehabilitated youth were invited or present. Just the people who think they know what it is that today’s youth are going through. You use a thief to catch a thief. So if you want to deal delinquent youth, best people to have as a major stakeholder would be troubled and delinquent youth. But no just people who want to put them in a box that they feel is best fit.
I totally agree. The overused and misapplied word “stakeholder” rarely includes those directly affected.