Hope for jailed kids but cruelty in UK centers 
(republishing, copying, no restrictions)
By: Father Shay Cullen
Last week another small frail child, nine-year-old, Andy, was rescued from the jails of Metro Manila. He came to the Preda Home for Boys with the shaved head of a convict and nothing but a soiled t-shirt and shorts. He was barefooted. He could be a poster boy for personified poverty and child abuse. He is malnourished, has that dazed look of the child traumatized by abuse behind bars.
The good news is that the jailing of children might soon end. The campaign of Preda Foundation, the Juvenile Justice Network, UNICEF, Jubilee Action and other agencies has succeeded in helping to pass the Juvenile Justice Bill that will stop most of this child abuse.
The exposé by Chris Rogers on ITV and CNN of the kids behind bars helped very much too. Hundreds of people wrote to the Speaker of the Philippine Congress and that speed end up the unanimous vote.
The new law guarantees Restorative Justice rather than punishment (no physical punishment is allowed); the minor gets an automatic suspension of sentence and is protected from branding as a criminal or delinquent. The child must at all times be separated from adults. Minors are exempted from prosecution for the crimes of vagrancy, prostitution, begging and sniffing glue.
The new law says that the child is exempt from criminal liability if 15 or younger and must never be put in a jail, handcuffed or verbally or physically or psychologically abused. However it will be another year before it is signed into law and be implemented, still for many children, its Preda or prison.
This is more of a hillside home, surrounded by fruit trees and a good view looking to the beauty of the Subic Bay. There are no walls fences, guards or gates. The children and youth, 9 to 17 become members of a big family. They receive affirmation, encouragement, respect, dignity and self esteem. They learn to be responsible and to care for each other.
There is legal help, school and vocational training, values formation and spiritual awakening. Sports, beach outings, singing and dancing are regular activities. The staffs are trained professionals and take on the role of brothers and sisters. There is no punishment other than extra cleaning duties or a deduction from their pocket money for misbehavior. Only 3 boys walked away and never came back since the programme started 2 years ago out of 141 children.
When the trusting relationship works so well what a shock it is then to read the findings of physical and verbal abuses and cruelty suffered by the children 15 to 17 year of age in the young offenders institutions, secure training centers and local authority homes in England and Wales. There are 2,800 children detained in these places and 200 of them are girls. Rough physical restraint was used on them 15,512 times in a 21 month period. This has to be brutal treatment. All this is revealed in the report by Lord Carlile of Berriew QC to the Howard League for Penal Reform. An investigation on the system was ordered when 15 year old Gareth Myatt died after being restrained by three members of the staff of the Rainsbrook Center, a private securer center near Rugby, four days after being sent to serve a sentence.
The investigating team was shocked for what they have found in other centers. The staff had permission to actually hurt the children what the whole world regards as child abuse. The investigation found children with bloodied and broken noses and they were hurt in many ways. Evidence was found that the children were provoked to resist so that the staff could restrain them and take pleasure or gratification in it. The report hinted that there could even be worse going on. So it is not only in the Philippines that abuses in prison are rampant but it seems no detention center is safe for kids. That has to end and we can never rest until it does. [End]
