Approaches / strategies

The section on priorities for intervention highlights what needs to change. This section looks at how such change can be made possible by briefly examining four approaches or strategies to juvenile justice reform:

Child Rights-Based Approach

A child rights-based approach, based on the key rights in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, is one which sees each child as a unique and equally valuable (non-discrimination - Art. 2) human being, with the right not only to life and survival, but also to development to their fullest potential (Art. 6). A child rights-based approach understands that children offer the best understanding of anyone of their own situation - that they have essential experience to offer (participation - Art. 12), and that they deserve to have their best interests met (Art. 3) through adequate allocation of resources and implementation of all the rights in the UNCRC (Art. 4).

A child rights-based approach requires implementation of international standards at all levels. By giving attention not only to Articles 37 & 40, but also to the five over-arching articles of the UNCRC (non-discrimination, best interests, implementation / resources, life, survival and development, and participation), a more holistic framework can be developed to underpin the design and implementation of any proposed reforms.

It can act as a checklist, by asking at every stage of the process:

Is this proposed reform in the best interests of the children?
Does it safeguard their life and survival and actively contribute to their development?
Have the children themselves been involved in planning and implementing it?
Is it reaching / taking into consideration the needs of all children, without discrimination against particular groups?
Are there adequate resources available?

Legal Reform

National legislation in many countries requires urgent reform in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other UN guidelines on juvenile justice (including the Riyadh Guidelines, Beijing Rules, and JDLs), to, inter alia:

ensure that children below the age of 18 are accorded the protection of separate justice provisions and are not treated as adults;
de-criminalise ‘vagrancy’, ‘loitering’, victims of commercial sexual exploitation and status offences such as truancy and ‘running away’;
set the minimum age of criminal responsibility (not to be confused with the minimum age of imprisonment) at a suitable level, with due regard for the protection of all children, above and below that age, according to comprehensive implementation of international human rights standards, and with special regard for children who may end up in the custodial system through welfare or administrative rather than criminal provisions;
outlaw the death penalty and life imprisonment for crimes committed by children under the age of 18 at the time of the offence and commute any existing death sentences passed on children;
ensure the protection of all children, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability and social, economic or any other status from discriminatory laws and practices (e.g. laws that discriminate against girls in relation to sexual behaviour

In addition to amending legislation, there is also a need to urgently develop, implement and monitor child-centred and child rights-based policies and procedures in the following key areas:

Prevention: Orient political will and allocate resources to the structured development of child rights-based comprehensive prevention policies as outlined in UN Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency (Riyadh Guidelines), 1990;
Stop processing children who are not in conflict with the law through the criminal justice system.
Diversion: Amend legislation and practices and allocate resources to ensure that detention and incarceration are only used as a last resort. Promote diversion programmes as an additional procedural mechanism to allow/ propose exit points at each stage of traditional criminal proceedings, with an emphasis on restorative justice and child rights-friendly traditional and non-formal justice systems. Immediately end the practice of lengthy pre-trial detention/ remand.
Alternatives to detention: Prioritise the use of non-custodial sentencing options as measures at the disposal of the judiciary (to constitute diversion from imprisonment, but not necessarily diversion from criminal proceedings) and implement immediate review of children currently in detention with a view to withdrawing them from detention for placement in alternative programmes.

Further resources and tools, including the draft UN Model Law, are available in the Resources and Training section of the website under legislative reform.

Training

Formal and informal training and sensitisation of actors in the juvenile justice system is essential to reform. However, this training needs to be of good quality, sustainable and replicable. Experience shows that, due to the inter-related nature of stakeholders in the system, cross-sectoral training is just as important as training of specific groups such as lawyers, judges, prosecutors, defenders, social workers, probation officers, detention centre staff etc. Training and sensitisation, however, are only one part of a broader strategy needed to improve juvenile justice attitudes and practice. Other elements may include:

Advocacy to bring national legislation in line with international standards;
Advocacy to ensure child rights and child protection practices are officially incorporated into the initial and in-service training curricula of professionals to ensure that training is replicable, sustainable and consistent;
Advocacy ynd awareness-raising amongst managers to ensure sustainability of, and support for, skills learned during training;
Advocacy for monitoring to ensure that standards are being implemented in practice;
Advocacy with local and national governments to allocate adequate resources to the establishment, training and functioning of specialised child services within the different professions;
Advocacy and capacity building for the establishment of ‘child protection desks’ in every police station;
Advocacy to achieve a better gender balance in recruitment of professionals;
Advocacy to end corruption within the justice system;
Production of information, education and communication (IEC) materials for actors in the system (leaflets, pocket handbooks, posters for workplaces, police stations etc.);
Empowerment programmes working with children themselves - especially those at risk of coming into conflict with the law - to raise awareness of their rights and responsibilities and how to claim their rights / access help when in difficult situations (including production of child-friendly IEC materials);
Sensitisation of the media and general public to the needs and circumstances of at-risk children, children in need of care and protection and children in conflict with the law to promote and protect their human rights and reduce misunderstanding, discrimination, exploitation and violence against them; capacity to respond to misinformation about children in conflict with the law in the media.
Advocacy for, and implementation of, comprehensive juvenile crime prevention programmes at national and community level (including child-rearing skills for at-risk families; community-based, structured sports and cultural/ creative activities for young people; educational support; comprehensive programmes for street, working and other out of school children; income generation and vocational training projects; child telephone helplines; media campaigns; life skills training; mentoring schemes etc.)

In general there appears to be inadequate monitoring and evaluation of juvenile justice training programmes internationally and very limited sharing of information. Much time and money is spent on training which is often ad hoc, isolated, overly theoretical (without enough practical application), and not followed up on. It is hoped that the tools available on the training section of this website will assist those involved in juvenile justice training to improve the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of such programmes.

Working Together

Reform of justice systems must take into account children’s relationships with the many stakeholders who make up the juvenile justice system:

law enforcement
prosecution
courts
correction
community

Boys’ and girls’ relationships with any of these actors can either be positive (supportive) or negative (abusive). Relationships can either provide children with a network of support, or they can fail to do this so that children end up ‘falling through the net’. The aim of reform is to capitalize on the supportive relationships and eliminate the abusive ones. Reform of juvenile justice systems will only be successful if there is coordination and cooperation between all of the actors involved, particularly in the following areas:

1. Professionals: inter-sectoral cooperation is key. The juvenile justice ‘system’ is, in fact, made up of multiple, overlapping ‘systems’. Children pass through processes, institutions and personnel from a variety of different government departments, agencies and organisations such as the police, social welfare and probation departments, judiciary, lawyers, detention centres and prisons. Although these systems are supposed to be interrelated, coordinated and interdependent, in reality each sector has its own mandate, budget authority, regulations, governing body and political agenda. Understanding and respecting this complexity is key to implementing reform. Legislative and policy reform, sensitisation and training must involve collaboration and exchange of information across all stakeholders involved.

2. International cooperation: there is an urgent need for improved networking and sharing of information internationally to capitalise on the wealth of experience that exists around the world on juvenile justice reform and to prevent the time and resources wasted on ‘reinventing the wheel’. It is hoped that this website, nourished by the active exchange of information amongst its users, will contribute to this process.

3. Media and public opinion:

Children in conflict with the law experience very negative stereotyping and this is one of the most significant underlying factors influencing their treatment in the criminal justice system: it obscures the individuality of boys and girls and leads to inappropriate and often abusive blanket responses from the criminal justice system.
Misconceptions about children in conflict with the law are often based on the lack of objective, systematic and accurate statistics on juvenile crime. This lack of data is due to lack of infrastructure, poor training, lack of systematised data collection methods, inconsistent categorisation of crimes and political manipulation of statistics. Furthermore, statistics often fail to distinguish between the causes and seriousness of offences.
The media can fuel public fear and condemnation of children in conflict with the law through inaccurate, unrepresentative and sensationalist reporting. This public fear impacts directly on local and national politics, informing discriminatory, repressive and punitive policies and practices.
Juvenile justice reform must challenge negative, generalised, stereotyped attitudes towards children in conflict with the law through sensitisation, public education and – wherever possible – breaking down the barriers between the children themselves and the individual decision-makers in local contexts.
See the press room for advice for the media in relation to the reporting of juvenile justice issues.
Further resources and tools are available in the Resources and Training section of the website under public attitudes towards children in conflict with the law.

Much of the text for these sections has been adapted from Wernham, M., An Outside Chance: Street Children and Juvenile Justice - An International Perspective, Consortium for Street Children, 2004 and Police Training on Child Rights & Child Protection: Lessons Learned and Manual, 2005.