THE BILL OF RIGHTS FOR YOUNG OFFENDERS: What has happened since 1985?

In 2005, I gave a speech at a UN conference held in Bangkok, Thailand and later in that year, I gave the same speech at an international conference held in Lima Peru and the following year, I gave the same speech at an international conference held in Brussels, Belgium. What follows is that speech.

In 1980, I gave a speech at a United Nations conference held in Caracas, Venezuela about my concerns with respect to what was happening to young offenders in correctional facilities.

I recommended that the United Nations create a bill of rights for young offenders and in November of 1985, the U.N. General Assembly adopted the bill of rights (called the Beijing Rules and also called, The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules on the Administration of Juvenile Justice)

The Rules were to have an effect on millions upon millions of children around the world, children in need of protection from abuse in our justice and correctional systems. To the children in trouble with the law in many of the signatories to the convention, the Rules were a godsend.

Alas, some signatories have since 1985, ignored some of the various rights that were to be afforded to these unfortunate children. It is the purpose of this paper to give descriptions of some of the abuses that was heaped upon some of these young offenders in correctional facilities who were supposed to be protected under the auspices of these Rules.

Rule 2.3 of the UN bill of rights for young offenders says in part;

“Efforts shall be made to establish, in each national jurisdiction, a set of laws, rules and provisions specifically applicable to juvenile offenders and institutions and bodies entrusted with the functions of the administration of juvenile justice.”

In 1980, my main complaint that prompted me to suggest the creation of a bill of rights for young offenders was about problems related to American government correctional facilities housing young offenders. A quarter of a century later, there are still problems in young offender correctional facilities and this is still my main complaint.

Section 13.5 of the Rules states that “while in custody, juveniles shall receive care, protection and all necessary individual assistance, social, educational, vocational, psychological, medical and physical; that they may require in view of their age, sex and personality.”

What follows are some of the horror stories that have come to light of what has occurred inside some of these young offenders facilities for boys and girls in the United States and Canada alone.

Established by both law and policy, the institutions were supposed to rehabilitate and treat children charged with misdeeds ranging from, refusing to attend school to homicide.

A 48-page report made public in 2003 by investigators in the United States painted a bleak picture of the privately run institutions as debilitating dumping grounds for troubled children. Woefully under financed, understaffed and ill-equipped, the institutions and their poorly trained workers doled out a volatile mix of physical and verbal abuse and in some institutions, mandatory Bible study, but at the same time, they withheld basic medical care and a decent education — all in violation of the Covenant that the United States signed with the United Nations.

Investigators who descended on the institutions four times in 2003 found ample evidence to declare that children as young as 10 were being mistreated. Here are some examples of the mistreatment those children were subjected to.

Boys and girls were routinely hogtied and placed in dark cells,shackled to poles or locked in restraint chairs for hours for minor infractions such as talking in the cafeteria or not saying "Yes” or “No, Sir." Girls were made to run while carrying tires and boys while carrying logs, sometimes to the point of vomiting and they were often forced to eat their own vomit. Boys and girls were also choked, slapped, beaten and attacked with pepper spray as a form of punishment.

Girls at a training school for girls who misbehaved or were on suicide watch were stripped naked and left in a windowless, stifling cinder-block cells, with nothing but the concrete floor to sleep on and a hole in the floor for a toilet, for several days and sometimes even a week at a time. One girl had been locked in a bare cell while naked for 114 straight days.


The ‘Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice’ clearly states that young offenders who are in correctional facilities should be properly medically cared for and yet there were some American young offender facilities where this edict was not being adhered to.

The acting head nurse at the aforementioned training school ignored children’s injuries and illnesses, refused to help girls fainting from heat and she even blocked children from having access to the visiting doctor.

The nurse at another boy’s training school was seen immunizing two children for Hepatitis B with the same needle. Dental care was nonexistent, and the dental clinic at that training school was a mess of mouse droppings, dead roaches and long-expired
medicines.

A 16-year-old boy in one of the young offender training camps should have been in a hospital instead of doing construction work and then being forced to do push ups. The boy collapsed with a severe lung infection at the camp for delinquents.

After doing construction in the morning, he was assigned to leaf cleanup. When he balked, staffers ordered him to do calisthenics. When he refused again, they put him in an isolation barracks. When he fought back, they placed him in a "control position." When he defecated on himself, they carried him to a shower. When he would
not get dressed, they put clothes on him and helped him do more calisthenics. At one point, the staff helped the boy do push-ups by grabbing his belt and pulling him up and down. Shortly after that, the boy died.

At the time of his death, the boy’s lungs were filled with pus --- the byproduct of pneumonia, bronchitis and strep and staph infections. He had been sick with empyema, an accumulation of pus in the lining between his left lung and chest cavity which had been reducing the elasticity in his left lung for weeks. Finally, after that
hellish day at the institution, his heart stopped beating for lack of oxygen. That privately-run young offender’s facility was subsequently closed down.

When a fifteen-year-old boy was sent by the court to another young offender’s facility in March 2003 after a string of burglaries, he hoped to get treatment for his bipolar disorder, which relatives say arose from sexual abuse he suffered at age three. But in letters to his father, the boy was soon begging to be transferred to a state mental hospital.

Despite the fact that he was to be given psychiatric treatment, he had only been visited by a therapist for two minutes. He had been given his punishment but denied what he needed most ---- psychiatric treatment.

Though mentally ill and retarded children belong elsewhere, 66 to 85 percent of the training schools' students were found to have mental disorders and 9 percent were suicidal. Yet psychiatrists spent an average of just one day a month on campus, mainly performing court evaluations and not treating patients. Individual staff
members handled as many as 30 children each, allowing for little of the personal attention as required by law. New students at some institutions were kept out of classes for three to five weeks, violating compulsory attendance laws. They were routinely pulled from class for work details, and those in isolation got sporadic instruction or none at all.

In the year 2001, there was an investigation into the death of a 14-year-old boy at a desert boot camp for troubled youth. He was dehydrated, delirious and forced to eat mud by his counselor. Other campers told of abusive treatment they said they had suffered at the hands of staff members who were not much older than the children
they were supervising. Children at the camp were punched, kicked,handcuffed and forced to swallow mud regularly. The younger campers were often made to ingest dirt that turned to mud after staff members poured water into their mouths. They said they were allowed to wear only black sweat pants and sweatshirts in temperatures that regularly exceeded 37 degrees Celsius and were physically abused for asking for food, water or medical attention. That privately-run camp was shut down also.

The 14-year-old boy was one of many children to die in a series of incidents in recent years at so-called wilderness therapy camps for young people in which rugged conditions and tough discipline are used to break antisocial and, in many cases, criminal habits. Many of these camps were not regulated by government authorities but were run by private organizations.

At one such camp, on one occasion, all the campers were told to lie on their backs alongside one another after which the teenage staff members wearing boots, ran across their chests. Complaints, the boys said, were answered with physical punishment. They would make the boys stand up at attention, and if they moved they'd punch the boys in their stomachs. In one instance, the campers were made to place rocks along a trail and if the boys didn't do it right, the teenage staff members would stomp on the boy’s arms.

In one instance, a boy’s arm was broken as a result of being stomped on. The boys said they were frightened of the man in charge of the camp. It was alleged that he once held a knife to the throat of an older boy who wanted to quit the program. His facility was also closed down.

In one training school, the girls were repeatedly pepper-sprayed while running up and down a hill 125 times. If a girl stopped to catch her breath, the staff member nearest her would pepper spray her in her face.

In many of these privately-run young offender facilities, there was no real supervision and as such, the young inmates were often brutalized by stronger inmates.

I remember when I worked in a young offender’s correctional facility in Canada in the mid 1950s, corporal punishment was the norm. A child would be forced to remove his clothes and he would be strapped with a heavy leather strap on his buttocks four or five times.

That kind of punishment ended in Canada in the 1970s. Striking a human being is banned in European society. Children are human beings. Yet hitting and deliberately humiliating children remains a common practice approved in some of the member states. The social and legal acceptance of corporal punishment of children, especially in
young offender facilities must come to a quick end.

The stupidity and brutality, is not entirely in the domain of privately-run juvenile correctional facilities. In one government institution in a large Canadian city, a sixteen-year-old boy was constantly teased by other inmates and made to eat his own vomit off the floor. He had had enough and after he was locked in his cell, he
wrapped a bed sheet around his neck and hanged himself with the other end of the bed sheet tied to a metal bar at the top of his bunk It was here that the real stupidity of the staff ran amok. The guard, who walked by and saw him hanging, wasn’t able to cut the dying boy down because he had been forbidden to carry a knife when doing his rounds. Ironically, guards in Canadian adult prisons are permitted to carry such knives on the night watch for the purpose of cutting down inmates who are committing suicide.

He reached for his radio and finding it missing, he left the youth hanging by his neck and walked to a control station at the end of the range to summon help. He not only walked to the control centre to avoid panic but stopped on the way back to put three youths who were in an open area back into their cells — a process that involved
unlocking and then re-locking the three cells. When he finally got back to the victim’s cell, the boy was near death.

The prison nurse who after being informed that the boy was hanging by his neck, neglected to bring any resuscitation equipment with her and had to return to the health station for it, and another officer who arrived at the cell could not cut the youth down because he too did not have with him the C-shaped knife used for such
emergencies.

This mentally ill youth, who was awaiting trial on charges of stealing cheques from relatives, managed to end his life on Oct. 1, 2002 while under a suicide watch ----- he died hours later after he was rushed to a hospital.

The stupidity of the staff occurred that night despite the fact that at least five other inmates in that correctional facility had earlier attempted to hang themselves using sheets.

The 130-bed detention centre for 16- and 17-year-old youths awaiting trial had previously been condemned by that province’s child advocate as being chaotic and unsafe. It too was finally closed down.

Canada wasn’t the only country where young offenders in the care of staff at young offender facilities have failed to protect their charges from hanging themselves.

In 1998, a 14-year-old boy hanged himself in the Santa Clara Juvenile Hall in California. He survived but remains in a vegetative state in his parent’s home. His family sued and settled for $3.5 million dollars. It was reported that the boy was taken to Juvenile Hall on burglary and vandalism charges, begged a counselor for help and threatened to kill himself the very day he made his suicide attempt. The county didn't put him on the proper medication soon enough to treat his bipolar disorder. And while he was supposed to be on suicide watch, Juvenile Hall officials failed to take precautions such as checking him at regular intervals and having a roommate present in his room at all times.

There is a dark corner of Canadian history that has chilling tales of sexual abuse, physical brutality and emotional torment thrust upon boys and girls inside correctional institutions once operated by the Ontario government. Canadians learned in the last few years that many hundreds of young boys and girls who were kept in young offender facilities were repeatedly sexually abused by some of their
supervisors. All of the supervisors convicted of these crimes were sent to prison and their victims were financially compensated by the Canadian government.

There is a cruel irony about this dilemma when you think about it. According to a Canadian study published by the Canadian government, between 20 and 30 percent of children under the age of twelve have been sexually abused; most of them by family members. Because of that kind of abuse they were subjected to, many later committed crimes and ended up in young offender correctional facilities where they were again sexually abused by adults who were supposed to protect them. Children who have been sexually abused are more likely than their non-abused peers to display a number of
problematic sexual behaviours including phobic reactions, sexual inhibitions, sexual hyper-arousal, impaired sexual impulse control, sexual preoccupation, promiscuity, sexual aggression, inappropriate sexual behaviour, and excessive masturbation

Canada is only one of many countries searching for an understanding of and possible solution to this public concern. Experts say that there is little mystery about how the facilities for young offenders reached such a state.

Public concern for treating juvenile offenders had waned, as had the attention of child-advocacy groups, to battles considered already won. Legislators had repeatedly cut financing for the young offender facilities saying the need for more funding wasn’t there.

Some countries are filling their juvenile halls and training schools with children guilty of lesser offenses — either to justify the costs of new detention centers, or because no other option exists.

Many of the poorest countries have no group homes or short-term treatment centers for young offenders. They end up using training schools as a catch basin for all the child and youth problems in their countries.

Unfortunate, the abuses of young offenders in correctional facilities in the United Kingdom was also rampant for many years. During his tenure as Chief Inspector of prisons, Sir David Ramsbotham indicated that many young offender institutions were so inhumane that they should have been closed immediately. His report identified
institutions where conditions of neglect were brought to the attention of Ministers at the time and despite that, still no action had been taken.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is the United Kingdom’s leading charity specializing in child protection and the prevention of cruelty to children. In February 2006, Mary Marsh, the NSPCC director and chief executive, and a member of Lord Carlile's advisory panel, said: "The NSPCC welcomes the report from Lord Carlile published by the Howard League for Penal Reform. The findings demonstrate a shocking discrepancy in the treatment of children in the British penal system. The use of violence and force as a control or punishment on some of the most vulnerable children and young people in our society is unacceptable, and is in clear breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.” unquote.

Such abuses are also in contravention of the UN bill of rights for young offenders in which the United Kingdom is a signatory.

The Youth Justice Board for England and Wales oversees the youth justice system in England and Wales. It works to prevent offending and re-offending by children and young people under the age of 18, and to ensure that custody for them is safe, secure, and addresses the causes of their offending behaviour. Specifically, that
organization: advises the Home Secretary on the operation of, and standards for, the youth justice system and monitors the performance of the youth justice system, amongst other things that it does.

Are too many children under the age of 18 being needlessly placed in correctional facilities? A quarter of the places currently in Ireland’s remand centres for under-16-year-olds charged with criminal offences are being used by children simply awaiting placements in suitable residential care units.

A total of 10,229 South African children below the age of 18 were detained nationally in police cells between May 1 and June 20 of 2006, according to that country’s Safety and Security Minister, Charles Nqakula. Recently, Amnesty International aired a complaint on television in which they described the abuses heaped upon young
children in Nicaragua who were kept in custody for months in police cells.

Effective as of July 2006, Philippines juvenile delinquents will no longer be accepted in jail facilities. Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno issued the order to all heads of the district, municipal and city jails nationwide, in compliance with the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act that was recently signed into law by President Gloria Arroyo.

Puno ordered the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology regional directors to prepare for the eventual release of all juvenile offenders or “children in conflict with the law” aged 15 or younger. Jail officials are ordered to turn over to the Department of Social Welfare and Development all juvenile offenders, aged 15 to 18, pending the
issuance of the implementing rules and regulations of the Juvenile Justice Law or Republic Act.

Experts on juvenile justice say that what was happening in those training schools was by no means rare. There are many young offender facilities who all had their horror stories. If the treatment of young offenders in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom; three countries that love freedom and their children, is so shabby in some of their young offender correctional facilities, imagine if you will what happens to imprisoned young offenders in third world countries where those countries don’t have the money to build suitable facilities and train staff on how to
treat their young charges.

Nevertheless there are ways we can improve the lot of these most unfortunate children. First, get rid of the privately operated young offender facilities or alternatively, have more state control over them. It seems that this is where most of the abuse lies.

Second, each facility should have a committee of concerned citizens called “visitors” inspecting the facilities. A Young Offender Facility Visitor Program should be set up for each young offender facility so that well meaning and respected persons, such as judges, criminologists, social workers, psychologists, retired nurses, retired
correctional officials and perhaps even sports or entertainment personalities can visit these correctional facilities regularly and talk with young offenders on a one-to-one basis who wish to express their concerns about their wellbeing to the Young Offender Facility ‘visitor’ who is interviewing them. This would be especially helpful for those incarcerated young offenders who don’t have visits from family members, relatives or friends of the family.

Hong Kong has such a program. It works for them. In certain parts of India, they have a Prison Visiting System which acts as a potential tool for prison reform. It works for them also. If these visitor programs can work in these countries, it should work
elsewhere.

Canada used to have grand juries inspecting prisons but that concept ended years ago. Now imprisoned young offenders can write their provincial Ombudsman for Children if they have a complaint. It is highly unlikely however that young children will avail themselves of that opportunity to express their grievances to such an Ombudsman
either because they are unaware of the Ombudsman or out of fear that they will be punished by the staff of the facilities they are imprisoned in for trying to communicate their grievances with the Ombudsman.

By the year 2005, eight Canadian provinces had an Ombudsman for Children but there is some concern that not all of them are adequately empowered to exercise their tasks as fully independent national human rights institutions in accordance with the principles relating to the status of national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights.

This is why this writer believes that a Prison Visiting Program is a more appropriate way of resolving the problem of child abuse in young offender facilities. The question that comes to the fore is; who is responsible for these crimes against these young offenders?

The answer, to some degree can be found, ironically enough, from the words of one of the most horrible human beings that ever inhabited this world. His statement however that he made at his trial is so applicable in situations like what took place in the institutions I have just written about. His name was Rudolf Hoess, the SS commandant at Auschwitz. He said in part;

“This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centres, stories of which were spread everywhere among the people and later by the prisoners who were freed, were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies and men who laid violent hands on the detainees.” unquote

Hoess wasn’t hanged because of the individual violence committed on the prisoners by his underlings but rather it was because he supervised the extermination of his prisoners. But his reference to his guards and others committing brutal assaults on his prisoners is so apt when considering what has been done to the young offenders in
the institutions that I have written about. The senior staff in those institutions were indifferent to the plight of the young offenders just as Hoess was indifferent to the plight of his prisoners.

It is my belief that the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules on the Administration of Juvenile Justice should be amended by including references to privately run young offender correctional facilities and police cells.

I envision that a day will eventually come about when society recognizes that all children, even young offenders should be loved, valued and given an opportunity to fulfill their potential without suffering from the indignities and abuse heaped upon them by those who are supposed to care for them in the young offender correctional
facilities.

In summary, I will quote what I said at the end of my speech I gave at the Sixth United Nations Congress held in Caracas in 1980 when I first addressed this problem to the UN. I said; “If what is happening to these young offenders is being done in the name of justice, then justice is going under an assumed name.”