Nobody's children?
Published:Sunday | March 20, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Editor's Note:
Imagine a jail cell measuring 5' x 7' holding 15 children age 12 to 17! Such are the overcrowded conditions at the Freeport Police Station in Montego Bay, which has the largest population of juveniles in custody in Jamaica.
Following the Armadale fire and media reports in May 2009 of the deplorable conditions under which children are remanded, Prime Minister Bruce Golding ordered that all minors be removed from such facilities and transferred to correctional centres. Buildings at Montpelier and Metcalfe Street were identified to be renovated to house these juvenile offenders. To date, these facilities are still inoperative.
In November 2010, it was reported that just over 100 children were still being held in police lock-ups islandwide.
An Office of the Children's Advocate (OCA) special Report on Children in the Custody of the Police, dated February 9, 2011, revealed that conditions under which children were jailed had not improved.
Recent statistics from the OCA show that as of March 11, 99 minors - 96 males and three females - were in police custody.