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D- Protecting children in Conflict with the Law.
Juvenile Justice around the world
| Defining Juvenile Justice. |
Large numbers of children become caught up in the legal system:
- as accused or accusers, or so called “children in conflict with law”,
- as victims or witnesses and,
- in situations outside conflicts with the criminal law, such as asylum-seeking children, refugee, unaccompanied children, or children incarcerated with their mothers. |
Children in conflict with the law remain children first and do not lose their human rights, including rights to special treatment and protection, to education and to health.
However, justice systems all over the world often violate their basic human rights. Over 1 million children worldwide are deprived of their freedom and are denied their rights as set out in the UN CRC.
In some countries:
- they are tortured and ill-treated in police custody,
- they are imprisoned in inhuman, degrading conditions and they are refused fair trials. |
Children in conflict with the law can face violence and abuse at every stage. Most violations of children’s rights occur during arrests and detention at policy stations and include verbal, physical and sexual abuse, attempted extortion and torture. In prison, children often face violence from other detainees and prison officers.
Detention only exacerbates vulnerability of children by exposing them to multiple forms of abuse including sexual violence, psycho-social damage and death through murder and extra-judicial killing. Many of them have little chance of reintegration into society: discrimination against these children, together with deprivation and poverty, limit their opportunities for developing into active and contributing adult citizens.
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- There are 1 million children in detention today.
- 90% of children in conflict with the law are petty offenders.
- The majority of children who end up in the criminal justice system are from deprived communities and discriminated minorities.
- Four out of five children who commit an offence only commit one in their life time.
- Four out of five children who commit an offence only commit one in their life time.
- 6 countries still permit the death sentence for crimes committed by children and 15 allow life sentences for children with no possibilities of release. |
Children's justice, (or Juvenile Justice), is not only related to the “treatment” of children in conflict with the law, but also to the analysis of the root causes of offending behaviors and measures to prevent such acts. Work in the field of children's justice therefore has two major strands: prevention and protection.
Juvenile Justice aims to:
- ensure that children do not come into conflict with the law and therefore do not come into contact with the formal criminal justice system.
- set up and implement measures to protect children who are already in conflict with the law, in order to deter them from reoffending and to promote their rehabilitation into society.
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