Saturday, August 27, 2005
Oledan: Restorative justice
By Radzini Oledan
Spice of Life
'Restorative justice essentially seeks to repair the damage done to victims.'
THE jail is no place for a child and a death sentence is too heavy a verdict for erring children.
The Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC) said around twenty-one of an estimated 2,000 children throughout the country who were either convicted of homicide or murder are currently on the death row. Eighty percent are first-time offenders and 11 percent are girls.
Alarmingly, there is no institution, which has bothered to look into the circumstances of their crimes. Almost always, the problem of young delinquents goes unnoticed and uncared for.
Life and crisis among children and youth are not seen as a matter to be seriously taken up by society.
Yet the absence of adequate attention on the situation of children and lack of understanding on the factors, which pushes them into delinquency, hinders their development into productive members of society.
This is the same apathy and the impoverished situation of communities, the gaps in the law and justice system and the lack of social security, which pushes children and youth to become hardened criminals in the future.
Delinquent children generally live in slums. They come of such families who have been rendered destitute by natural events and gradual pauperization process.
Rural poor people who lose their homesteads and cultivable land by river erosion or by socio-economic degeneration come to cities such as Davao with the hope of some shelter and some income.
As a first ditch measure they take refuge in the slums where there is an already painful social and environmental degeneration. After they find refuge, they start looking for work in casual labor but the amount is never sufficient for a decent meal.
Proper clothing, maintenance of health and hygiene and education to children are unavailable. In a matter of time, young children are forced to go to streets to either earn their living or supplement family income.
But as they are not strong, educated and skilled they do not get enough work. So, they fall susceptible to unsocial activities and crimes. Some such children adopt begging, others look for unsocial and criminal acts like theft, snatching, violence and mugging.
There are people who lure children to be involved in such activities for their own gains. Organized groups hire them to engage in begging and prostitution.
The arrested delinquents are sent to prison. There, instead of specialized separate zones, they are kept with hardened criminals. Here they are harassed and abused in many ways and are taught many more criminal tactics.
After living in jail or serving criminal sentence they come out as hardened criminals. Thus delinquent children turn into full criminals to enter into the new wider world.
Pending in the Congress for ten years is the proposed Comprehensive Juvenile Justice Law which seeks to provide special protection to children in conflict with the law.
There are four key provisions: raise the child's age from nine to 12 years old to be criminally liable, establish separate detention centers for children, provide a diversion program to keep them out of jail, and to institute "restorative justice" in the law.
Restorative justice essentially seeks to repair the damage done to victims. This way, public safety is enhanced as the offender, victim, and the community come together to prevent juvenile delinquency.
It is a reflection on the lack of realization that children especially those who are in conflict with the law are not a priority.
Yet there is no other way to go but to embrace a valued-based approach to responding to wrongdoing and conflict, with a balanced focus on the offender, victim, and community.
By transforming wrongdoing by healing the harm, particularly to relationships that is created by harmful behavior and collectively identifying and addressing it, we are able to create healing and put things right again.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (August 27, 2005 issue)
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