Government bill to pave way for special facilities for juvenile offenders
Until now the Czech Republic has lacked proper facilities for dealing with juvenile offenders committing serious crimes - including murder. But, that could all be about to change. On Wednesday the government approved an amendment put forward by the Education Ministry to create new facilities for juveniles who had committed serious offences, not just as a means of "putting them out of society's way" to prevent them from doing additional harm, but to provide crucial counselling and perhaps a lifeline to turn their lives around.
Jan Velinger joins us in the studio to tell us more about the proposal. First of all, why has the question of an amendment come to the forefront now?
"Without a doubt one reason a change in legislation has been given so much of an impetus is, tragically, a rise in brutal crimes committed by juveniles in the Czech Republic in recent months. The most notable was a ghastly murder of an elderly lady by a group of juveniles in September that really tipped the scales, making it clear how unprepared the Czech Republic really was for dealing with young offenders. Lowering the age of criminal accountability has been discussed as a deterrent but that alone is hardly an answer, since you can't just send juveniles to prison. What the country really needs is a proper facility with a stress on eventual rehabilitation rather than punishment - even for those who have committed serious crimes. I spoke with Anna Sabotova of the Ombusman's office earlier and here is what she had to say:
"There is no question that the Czech Republic needs an institution from which juvenile delinquents cannot escape, but I certainly would never call it a prison but an institution in which proper pedagogical and educational programmes can be applied. The Czech Republic does not have a single facility for children who commit offences for which they would be held criminally responsible if they were adults. We need an institution where juveniles can be successfully kept from running away, but the emphasis has to be on special programmes, re-socialisation - rather than strictness. It has to be a place you can build a relationship with what are admittedly very disturbed individuals."
Now I understand the cut-off for the new facilities is the age of 15 - where the line of criminal accountability is currently drawn - and those who would be sent there would really only be those who had committed the most serious offences, requiring them to be monitored so that indeed they couldn't escape.
"That's correct, you wouldn't have a juvenile committed for smoking marijuana: these are serious offenders who have committed violent crimes. But, of course they are still juveniles which means you can't treat them like they were in prison. An earlier facility which used to exist in the Czech Republic but was closed down by the Education Ministry came under severe criticism for its treatment of juveniles that could only be seen as counter-productive: a level of strictness and rigidity that if anything pushed offenders to become even more hardened in their ways. At the end of the day, it's important to remember that some of these kids have had very hard breaks in their lives: having grown up in orphanages, half-way houses, with neglect or even abuse, individuals who have essentially fallen through the cracks.
And the view of most experts is that we can not afford to give up on them even after they have crossed the line. Specialists from the Education Ministry, the prison service as well as psychiatrists will form a commission now to try and draw-up the guidelines but the bottom line is the new facilities should not be 'jails for children' as some of the Czech media has reported, but institutions that would try and help even the most troubled of juveniles despite what they might have done."
