Peru's pilot project in Restorative Justice for offending teens, a bid for less jail time
68% of Peruvian teens who commit petty crimes, according to official data, are put behind bars, sentenced for up to 3 years of reclusion. This despite Peru’s own Child and Adolescent Code, a progressive piece of legislation in accord with international treaties that recommends interment only as a last resort and for brief periods of time, proposing alternative sentencing options such as remission, community work, assisted liberty, and open custody.
"The fact is that, in practice, non-custodial alternative sentencing is not adopted in the majority of cases," words of Jean Schmitz, a representative of Terre des Hommes Lausanne Foundation in Peru, for the first issue of "Justicia para Crecer" (Justice for Growth) a publication specialized in Restorative Justice for Juveniles, on February of 2006 (Read the original article in Spanish here).
In early 2005 a pilot project in restorative justice was launched in an attempt to revert this scenario, bringing together the non-governmental organizations Terre des Hommes Lausanne and Encuentros – Casa de la Juventud, in collaboration with Peruvian public and private entities. The result was a model experiment on restorative justice as a show-case of the social, economic and legal benefits to be reaped in contrast with punitive or custodial based juvenile justice.
Immediate defense system
One of the project’s goals was to strengthen an "immediate defense" system from the outset, from the youth’s first contact with law enforcement and policing, as well as developing non-custodial sentencing that promotes reparations for victims and the restoration of bonds between teenage offenders and victims and/ or with his or her community.
Oscar Vásquez Bermejo, director of Encuentros – Casa de la Juventud said that "It is vital that teenage accountability be developed as part of his or her education in citizenship, from the perspective of individual rights it is important the child take responsibility for his/her acts."
over-Judicialized offenses
Two interdisciplinary teams lead the project’s activities: the Immediate Defense team and the Educational Follow Up team. The first comprises a lawyer, a psychologist and a social worker, responsible for monitoring and protecting the rights of detained teens. The team carries out case by case evaluations under the three perspectives and recommends as appropriate, remission, alternative sentencing or incarceration.
"One of the objectives of this project is to prevent cases of less import from being over-judicialized," said Oscar Vásquez Bermejo. "Both the Attorney and the Judge rely on reports and technical evaluations recommending remission or alternative sentencing measures."
Education and restored bonds
The Education Follow Up team, comprising an education professional, a social worker and a network coordinator, is in charge of establishing a relationship with the young offender based on educational goals that foster responsibility and the skills necessary to restore bonds to his family and community.
The Education team is also in charge of strengthening support mechanisms within the offender’s family, as well as helping the teenage offender access to job opportunities and the educational system, through partnerships to private and public entities present in the community, (termed Reception Units by the project).
"We want to make it easier for teens to serve their communities, to join specialized treatment programs for drug addiction or domestic violence, as well as educational services and leisure," adds Jean Schmitz.
Monitoring and evaluation for replication
The three year long project is a first step to reproducing it across the country. Project managers hope by monitoring and evaluating this phase, to derive the greatest benefits from the experience, generating the data and knowledge necessary for acquiring greater momentum in the social and political environment of the nation.
"Justice professionals who took part in the pilot project show a growing interest in restorative justice for juveniles, in gaining more in-depth knowledge, specialization and in making their own contributions," said Oscar Vásquez Bermejo.
The director hopes to create the appropriate conditions for training specialists able to pass on their experience and replicate the project in other regions of Peru.
Translated by Lis Horta Moriconi
User login
Newsletters
Who's online
Upcoming events
Comments
Henry Clay, a nineteenth
Henry Clay, a nineteenth century U.S. representative and later senator from Kentucky, devised the American System to fashion a compromise to unite the United States into a single political unit by providing a way for all sections to benefit economically from national policies. Britain flooded the United States with cheap goods and undermined U.S. business growth. In 1816, Clay proposed a tariff to protect American java web hosting providers, but this was opposed by western and southern agricultural interests who feared British retaliation against U.S. exports. To make this tariff more attractive to agricultural interests, Clay proposed that the national government undertake major internal improvements, such as federally financed roads and canals paid for by the tariff revenue and public land sales. This compromise also depended on the Second Bank of the United States for economic stability. Although Clay saw this compromise as helping everyone, President Andrew Jackson vehemently opposed it. Jackson favored the anti-business views of President Thomas Jefferson and saw Clay as continuing the pro-business ideas of Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the Treasury. Eventually the Clay- Jackson disagreements led to the founding of the Whig Party and later the Republican Party. In a sense, the Clay-Jackson dispute is a precursor to the j2ee hosting business philosophies in both Republican and Democratic Parties as late as the twenty-first century. Clay also lost virtually every battle he fought with Jackson, but his ideas won out in the long run. Clay had a vision of the federal government using its national revenue-raising power to fund a wide variety of internal improvements. In a single-member legislative district system (such as that used for both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate), internal improvements based on pork barrel politics is a very likely outcome. Clay recognized this and provided the underlying rationale for the system widely used by both U.S. political parties from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Clay’s American System can be seen in national internal improvement polices from the development of canals to railroads to the development of the interstate highway system.
I thank the writer friend
I thank the writer friend for his writings on your site. I read all of it and i need to read new writings anymore. For the time being, i watched this type of topic on facebook and i liked it so much. In addition, it's one of the rare topics on the site.
See you at a new topic.
Post new comment