Minors detained under SoE well protected by law

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go says mi­nors de­tained un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) are well tak­en care of while in cus­tody, fol­low­ing ques­tions sur­round­ing the de­ten­tion of a 16-year-old boy un­der the spe­cial pow­ers re­cent­ly.

Teenag­er Jay­lon George is cur­rent­ly be­ing held at the Youth Train­ing and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (YTRC) un­der a pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­der (PDO). Au­thor­i­ties al­lege he was iden­ti­fied through con­fi­den­tial in­tel­li­gence as a mem­ber of the Ras­ta City/Sev­en Gang. He was de­scribed in the PDO as a “shoot­er” with ac­cess to high-pow­ered firearms and in­volve­ment in plans for im­mi­nent re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks.

How­ev­er, his par­ents, Mar­lon Ward and Lis­lles George, claim he is in­no­cent and was mere­ly lim­ing with a group of his friends at the time of his ar­rest on March 7. The po­lice ar­rest­ed four of the five peo­ple in the group and charged them with pos­ses­sion of a weapon.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to is­sue a pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­der (PDO) to George, sug­gest­ing the po­lice have in­tel­li­gence to sup­port their ac­tion.

Prison of­fi­cials say Jay­lon is be­ing housed in a dor­mi­to­ry by him­self, as it is im­prop­er to place him with re­mand­ed and or con­vict­ed mi­nors at the YTRC. He is the sec­ond mi­nor this year held at the YTRC un­der a PDO, af­ter an­oth­er child was housed there dur­ing the last SoE, which end­ed in Jan­u­ary.

In re­sponse to queries from Guardian Me­dia, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty out­lined the pro­tec­tions and over­sight mech­a­nisms in place for mi­nors in cus­tody dur­ing an SoE, em­pha­sis­ing that mi­nors de­tained un­der such or­ders are af­ford­ed spe­cif­ic le­gal and so­cial pro­tec­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the au­thor­i­ty, chil­dren re­mand­ed at YTRC have ac­cess to le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, ei­ther through Le­gal Aid or pri­vate at­tor­neys re­tained by their fam­i­lies. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, each child is as­signed a case­work­er from the au­thor­i­ty’s Child Jus­tice and Sup­port Unit, once no­ti­fi­ca­tion of de­ten­tion is re­ceived from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

The au­thor­i­ty said sup­port ser­vices at the fa­cil­i­ty in­clude a Wel­fare Unit, med­ical care through an in­fir­mary and doc­tor, and ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes. Its Place­ment, Li­cens­ing and Mon­i­tor­ing Unit al­so con­ducts over­sight to en­sure the qual­i­ty of care pro­vid­ed to de­tained mi­nors.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about the treat­ment of mi­nors in cus­tody, the au­thor­i­ty stressed that chil­dren in con­flict with the law are not housed in adult pris­ons. In­stead, they are kept in child-ap­pro­pri­ate fa­cil­i­ties such as YTRC, where mon­i­tor­ing units con­duct both an­nounced and unan­nounced in­spec­tions. These in­clude re­view­ing records, in­spect­ing fa­cil­i­ties and en­gag­ing di­rect­ly with staff and res­i­dents.

The au­thor­i­ty added that chil­dren are gen­er­al­ly housed in dor­mi­to­ry set­tings based on the na­ture of their of­fences.

On the is­sue of psy­choso­cial sup­port, of­fi­cials said YTRC pro­vides ac­cess to a psy­chol­o­gist and wel­fare ser­vices, while de­tainees are al­lowed to main­tain con­tact with rel­a­tives through sched­uled vis­its and phone calls. Ed­u­ca­tion­al and recre­ation­al pro­grammes al­so form part of the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion frame­work.

De­spite height­ened an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions un­der the SoE, the au­thor­i­ty said it has not ob­served an in­crease in mi­nors be­ing de­tained dur­ing po­lice raids or op­er­a­tions.

It al­so high­light­ed on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with the TTPS in high-risk or “hotspot” com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing joint home vis­its, case in­ter­ven­tions and train­ing ses­sions aimed at sen­si­tis­ing of­fi­cers.