Parliament committee told of meagre help for wayward children

TWO NGOs lamented too little help to keep wayward schoolchildren out of trouble and too little help to reform prison inmates, at a virtual hearing of a parliamentary committee on Monday.

The Joint Select Committee (JSC) on National Security chaired by Fitzgerald Hinds interviewed Vision on Mission (VoM) CEO Giselle Chance and chairman Gerard Wilson (a former Prisons Commissioner) plus Eye on Dependency director Garth St Clair and secretary Natasha Nunez.

As the JSC inquired into ways to lessen the lure of criminal gangs for youths, committee member Keith Scotland asked if schools had programmes to identify vulnerable youngsters early on. St Clair replied that schools have guidance counsellors (and used to have safety officers), but these were far too few in number and were often stretched among several schools.

He said that even before reaching school, children may be hungry from having had no breakfast, and may have left home seeing their mother and father fighting or may have just a single parent. St Clair said schools see the end result of all of this, but need to ask exactly why pupils were acting up.

Saying support programmes like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), MILAT and MYPART were only available to school-leavers, Scotland asked if these should also be accessible by pupils still in school. St Clair replied yes. "It would make a huge difference. They are already trained to do same."

Scotland urged that sport be used to help channel the energies of youngsters away from delinquency. St Clair said self-esteem can be ruined in a child's home, such as when an angry mother tells her son he is worthless just like his father. He said youngsters leaving school with no qualifications were very vulnerable to the lure of gangs.

Hinds asked the NGOs about their statements that the mindset of some prison officers was still centred on traditional retributive justice not on restorative justice, and about some magistrates being averse to drug treatment courts.

St Clair related that some prison officers had chided his NGO's prison radio project in the Maximum Security Prison.

"We heard directly from officers that this was making the jail too easy, because some of them tend to think it must be this punitive approach. Jail must be hard labour bursting concrete and make prisoners' lives as possible." He recalled the attitude of some officers during his own visits alongside VoM to do lectures in prison.

"You could see they are not enthusiastic about us being there. Sometimes we are made to wait really long periods outside and then by the time we get in and set up in an environment that is really not conducive to any education and learning, we barely have just 45 minutes to impart knowledge. The whole attitude of most of these officers must change."

St Clair lamented that magistrates were repeatedly sending drug addicts to jail rather than getting them treatment via the drug treatment courts.

"I'd advise some parents, your right as a citizen is to let the magistrate know that your child needs drug treatment intervention. Some magistrates will respond that you are only using the drug treatment courts as an excuse not to go to jail. They will send a person to jail ten, 15 times for the same breaking in, larceny and these type of things but will not understand that you cannot lock away an addiction. You can lock away the person and the addiction will go to sleep but once the person is released they go back to the habit again."

Hinds asked if prison offered drug rehabilitation. St Clair replied, "It was something Natasha and I recommended. It was started. It was shut down, for some unknown reason."

Wilson said some magistrates were not supportive of drug treatment courts. He urged a drug treatment programme be run in prisons.