Jordan Times
Thursday, December 8, 2005
Juvenile justice reform program launched
By Francesca Sawalha
AMMAN — An international cooperation programme will help reform the juvenile
justice system by reinforcing legislation on children in conflict with the law,
upgrading rehabilitation facilities and services for young offenders, as well as
training judges, prosecutors, lawyers, police officers and social workers.
Predominantly funded by Switzerland, but also with a contribution from the
Netherlands, the $1.1 million Juvenile Justice Reform Programme is slated to be
implemented over the next two years by the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime (UNODC), which has already carried out a similar project in Lebanon.
This fresh drive to intensify juvenile justice reform efforts hinges on a close
partnership between the ministries of planning, justice and social development,
and the Public Security Department (PSD), as main counterparts, as well as
several other institutions and NGOs.
On the sidelines of a launching ceremony on Wednesday, UNODC officers and social
activists alike emphasised the need to rectify weaknesses in the current
Juvenile Justice Law, ensuring stricter adherence to international conventions
to which the Kingdom is signatory.
Alternative measures to imprisonment, such as community service, for example,
should feature more predominantly in the law, suggested International Programme
Coordinator Carlotta Ferrero.
The programme also intends to lobby for raising the age of criminal
responsibility, currently fixed at seven — well below both the regional average
of 12-13 and the international standard of 18.
“Legal aid is another key problem that needs to be addressed from a legislative
point of view,” Ferrero told The Jordan Times. “Too often minors in conflict
with the law do not have a lawyer because there is no institutionalised
mechanism to offer them legal representation free of charge.”
The recurrent phenomenon of inadequate legal aid, experts agree, contributes to
another plight saddling Jordan's juvenile justice system: Very long pre-trial
detentions — too long for the good of the involved minors, their families and
society at large.
In addition to working at the legislative level, the programme will also upgrade
the services of the country's seven rehabilitation centres for minors, and the
physical infrastructure of at least two of them.
Transport Minister Saud Nseirat, who was acting planning minister yesterday
instead of Suhair Al-Ali, announced that “a residential institution for
juveniles who have committed serious offences and a youth care service with
residential facilities for children in difficult circumstances will be
established” under the programme.
The programme will tackle “care and rehabilitation of juveniles in conflict with
the law, delinquency prevention and recidivism, as well as improvement of
detention conditions pending trial,” UNODC Regional Representative Mohammad
Abdul Aziz told the launching ceremony, attended by several ministers and
officials, Public Security Department representatives, and diplomats.
The need to combat juvenile delinquency by acting on the two fronts of
rehabilitation and prevention was emphasised also by Mona Hider, resident
representative of UNDP, which is the programme's associated executing agency.
Officials and experts agreed that capacity building within the ministries of
social development and justice was a key component of the programme, together
with training for judges, lawyers, police officers, social workers and NGOs, in
order to improve the quality of services for children in conflict with the law,
children at risk and victims.
Furthermore, the programme is expected to provide audiovisual equipment to the
Kingdom's three juvenile courts (to allow minors to render testimony in a
separate room), upgrade the training of probation officers (identified as key
professional figures in the rehabilitation of minors) and create a database for
the juvenile courts.