The Forgotten of the Forgotten

It seems that fighting for juvenile justice reforms is a no-man's land. Governments typically don't care much about the juvenile justice system as the courts, jails, government offices, public defenders and prosecutors are all more under-funded than the adult system. A simple walk through the juvenile court building in Mexico City is all it takes to see the holes in the walls, paint chipped entirely off the walls, and offices stacked with people in small desks where they can barely function.

The criminal justice reforms that were passed in 2008 to modernize the courts and guarantee rights for defendants and victims alike, have barely touched the juvenile justice system. The federal agency overseeing the implementation of the reforms, SETEC, has barely included the juvenile system in its discussions. The US Embassy is supporting these reforms via the US Agency for International Development (USAID). When I asked the USAID director for the criminal justice project in Mexico what programs they have funded related to juvenile justice, he cited just one, four years ago. He stated that was because SETEC hasn't prioritized juvenile justice.

The international community is little better. Criminal justice and rule of law projects that work on prison and court reform almost always work in the adult system to the exclusion or near exclusion of juveniles. One NGO director that specialized in prison reform told me that there just aren't very many juveniles in prison compared to adults. On the other had, children's rights organizations let you sponsor children to pay for their health care and schooling, but rarely venture into children's prisons or have the expertise to advocate for juvenile justice reforms.

Kids in prison are truly the forgotten of the forgotten. Mostly petty criminals, they are left to sit in prison for months or years, missing school, losing important connections to family and community. Even when their government begins taking serious steps to improve the criminal justice system, they find out there are not enough of them in prison to warrant much attention. How many of these kids will one day help to fill up the adult prisons?