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.
I had the great pleasure of meeting with Casa Alianza- Mexico today. They gave me a tour a two of their five youth homes for homeless teenagers in Mexico City. It was an amazing experience. Casa Alianza, known as Covenant House in the US and Canada, is an organization that works with homeless teenagers through North and Central America. They have been in Mexico City for 26 years! There is an amazing amount of overlap between the homeless youth population and children in prison.
In recent weeks I have been exploring the possibility of working with Mexican universities to create a juvenile justice law clinic. There are a few public and private law schools in Mexico City that have clinical programs, but none work with juveniles in prison. But the universities that I have spoken I with are very excited about the possibility.