Is anyone paying attention?

I became interested in juvenile justice, at least partly, because it seemed to be a forgotten and overlooked area for many. The problem of kids in prison was never the "flavor of the day" for human rights activists at my university. Even my first project in Bolivia with Save the Children was part of a side-project that Save had just started with kids in detention, and then shortly after I left ended the project.

With Mexico's ongoing criminal justice reforms, it would seem like fertile ground to be advocating for reforms to the juvenile justice system. Both the Mexican and US federal governments have been pouring resources into the criminal justice system reforms for years now. Mexican and US universities, and non-governmental organizations have been researching and advocating for reforms that recognize prisoners' rights. But among all of these efforts, very little has been directed towards juvenile justice reform.

Why is this? It is partly a question of expertise. Many criminal justice reform organizations state that they don't have the expertise in juvenile. Children's rights organizations don't have criminal justice expertise. It is also partly it is a question of resources and numbers. There are limited resources and organizations want to reach the largest number of people or reform the largest systems. So, prison reform and criminal justice reform focuses on adults because there are more. Whereas children's rights organizations focus on education and health because they impact more children.

But I believe that in reality reforms to the juvenile justice system impact a much greater number of kids than is immediately clear. Because juveniles can only be in the juvenile justice system until 18, those that re-offend are often over 18. Thus, the failure to respond to juvenile crime proportionally, excessive detention and the lack of community-based treatment and reintegration programs, means that the juvenile justice system is contributing to an over-burdened adult system.  Kids who are failed by the juvenile system re-offend as adults.

Furthermore, the problems that children's rights advocate are trying to address - lack of education, health and nutrition, even the lack of registering birth certificates - are all more acute for juveniles in conflict with the law. Many of these kids come from the most at-risk communities.

It is unfortunate that both among non-governmental organizations and the government, that juvenile justice is an afterthought. The ripple-effects from the failures of the juvenile justice system are impacting both criminal justice reform efforts and efforts to improve the situation of at-risk children. We need these communities to engage on juvenile justice reforms.

Justice reform is more than good intentions...

Bolivia imprisons 16 and 17 year old juveniles in adult prisons. Bolivia's prison system has some of the worst conditions in Latin America and the world. When I visited San Pedro prison, an infamous men's prison in the center of La Paz, Bolivia, I was genuinely scared and anxious to get out as soon as possible. I took a short tour of the facility, a converted convent that was at 200% of capacity. My college and I had chosen a visiting day to meet with the prison social worker and psychologist, so when we were ready to leave we had to fight the crowd at the front gate and get the guard's attention so he would pick us out of the mass of prisoners.

Considering the deplorable conditions of the adult prisons in Bolivia, it was no wonder that a Brazilian NGO had dedicated resources to build a modern facility outside of La Paz to house the juveniles that were being detained in San Pedro. The new facility was centered around treatment and rehabilitation. They had hired a full staff of social workers, psychologists, and prison officials. They had obtained all of the government permissions required. The building was built and ready to go. Except for one thing. It was completely empty of juveniles. 

The reason: only 12 of the 200 juveniles in San Pedro had been sentenced. The rest were awaiting trial and the judges would not approve their transfer. How do you rehabilitate somebody who has never been convicted? 

When I talked with the NGO in Bolivia I was not surprised. I had already finished my research for Save the Children and discovered that at least two-thirds of the juvenile prison population was awaiting trial in Bolivia. Many people talked about the deplorable prison conditions and the overcrowding - government officials, human rights advocates and NGOs. But the reality is that many of the problems in the prison system are a result of problems in the justice system. The justice system is broken and is simply sending too many people to prison for too long, often without even sentencing them. Its like a leaky dam causing a river to flood and blaming the river banks. What are the prison officials to do?

The Children in Prison Project is dedicated to creating systematic reforms to the juvenile justice system. In order to be effective, our projects have to be based on solid research and a holistic understanding of the justice system as it exists.  Justice reforms have to be more than just good intentions.

Read our research on the Mexico City juvenile justice system.

Kids For Cash and the International Crisis

"Kids for Cash" is a new documentary just coming out that follows the corruption in the juvenile justice system in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. A juvenile court judge would get kids accused of crimes and their parents to waive their right to an attorney and then send them to a private detention center. The owners of the detention center then gave the judge kick-backs for each kid. I all $2.6 million in kick-backs and 3000 kids were involved. The documentary follows some of the specific stories of kids whose lives were ruined by detention, mostly kids who had committed non-violent, petty offenses.

When I first found out about the Kids for Cash scandal I was living in Bolivia working with Save the Children on a project in detention. What was an anomaly in the US and "rocked the nation" (according to the movie poster) was common practice in Bolivia. Kids who were arrested for any manner of crime (sometimes just failing to pay off the police) would sit in prison. If they were under 16 years old they would be trapped for 180 days. If they were older, 18 months. These were kids who had never been convicted of any crime, and most never would be. Two-thirds of the juveniles in Bolivia's prisons are "awaiting trial" or in "preventative detention". The reality is that the trial never comes for for most. The law limits the time in preventative detention to 180 days or 18 months, depending on age. After the time limit, most kids are released and the prosecutors don't bother following up. The only exception is if the victim or victim's family bribes the police and prosecutor to investigate and bring a case to trial.

The "Kids for Cash" shows how prison can destroy young lives. But the same thing is happening all over the world, kids are thrown into prison with serious criminals, often times adults too. They leave months or years later broken.  Kids for Cash-type corruption is occurring all over the world.  Corrupt systems that trap kids in prison.

Lying About Getting Coffee... Laying the Groundwork

Because the Children in Prison Project is new, I have been spending a lot of time "laying the groundwork" for future projects. Or insert your favorite business euphemism, "networking", stumbleupon, or try this one. What it really means is that I send out a lot of emails, make a lot of phone calls and then count the days until I think it is not rude to email again or call again until I get response. When I am lucky enough to make contact, I usually ask for a meeting over "coffee", which is a white lie, as I am a total caffeine addict and can't touch real coffee.

The truth is that I have had some meetings that will be very important for our future work - with Mexican NGOs, government officials in the federal or local government, even the US and Canadian Embassies (these are great examples of networking as "stumbleupon" networking as my wife's photography clients were the ones to put me in contact with people at the embassies).

In fact, a very promising project I am developing is a partnership with corporations' corporate social responsibility programs to raise funds to get more kids out of prison and into alternative programs. We are still developing the proposal, but I am trying to partner corporations with local Mexican NGOs that work with kids on release programs in order to increase their capacity to take in more kids. We may even be able to provide legal defense to some of these kids. I can't get more specific yet.

So in between emails and un-returned calls, exciting things are happening. February and March promise to bring more of the same, so stay tuned...


Consider supporting us with a small gift: http://internationaljusticeconsulting.org/donations.html