JUVENILE LAWS REVIEW A WELCOME MOVE

It should get to the root causes, says child rights advocate

CHILD rights advocate Sharmila Sekaran welcomed a review to juvenile laws with a focus on rehabilitation. She said it was high time the focus was brought back to juvenile offenders through the review, instead of having stakeholders’ issues dominate the narrative.

Sharmila said the review should get to the root causes, be it the lack of parental guidance or discipline at home or because the youth are not academically inclined.

She also said the review should look into the prosecution imposing negligence charges on parents whose children turn to crime due to neglect.

Sharmila said this in response to Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s statement that there was a need for the review on laws related to juvenile offenders.

Zahid, who is also home minister, had said juvenile offenders should be rehabilitated and not imprisoned. He also acknowledged that laws related to juvenile offenders could be improved, with an emphasis placed on rehabilitation.

Sharmila noted that a proper review would help Malaysia improve its standards on rehabilitating juvenile offenders and bring it closer to the levels of progressive systems adopted in countries like Iceland, Finland, the United Kingdom and Australia.

She said these countries practised approaches dubbed “diversions” from the court system, so that children would not be criminalised.

“Moving forward, I think we should adopt youth justice conferencing and release them on good behaviour bonds.”

She said conferencing was mediation that involved young offenders with their parents, as well as the affected parties or victims and their guardians, together with a state representative.

“They sit down together and attempt to help offenders understand why he or she is in trouble and may face charges. Most of the time, the system does not emphasise this.”

She said in mediation, the state representative, who should be an expert, such as a psychologist or criminologist, would decide whether the child needed to be institutionalised or could be released.

She said the Henry Gurney method of rehabilitation was ideal as it focused on education, especially vocational modules, for those who are not academically inclined.

Sharmila believed that the reason the school had negligible rates of recidivism was because it provided consistent discipline and monitoring that was probably absent at home.

Zahid had earlier said the curricula at Henry Gurney schools were “very effective”.