Reforming youth offenders

It’s confirmed –  jail guards in the Operation Second Chance youth facility did physically abuse youth offenders detained there.

The  Cebu City government shouldn’t let its guard down.

The designation of PNP  jail guards to handle the wards  runs counter to the Operation Second Chance official handbook which states that the house parents should deal directly with the offenders.

Based on that same handbook, the guards were only there to secure the facility and not to discipline the youth inmates.

Unfortunately, whoever gave jail guards free rein of the  detainees completely overlooked the handbook.

The hostage taking incident in the center where  one of the guards was locked up in the toilet and another was beaten up was a wake-up call for Cebu city officials to take more direct respnsibility of Operation Section Chance, which was built largely out of City Hall’s initiative as one of the first local governments in the country to establish a separate lockup for minor offenders.

With the passge of the the  Juvenile Justice Act in 2006, the PNP has no more business handling youngsters below 18 who run afoul of the law.

It’s supposed to be the responsibility of civilian authorities — the local government and the Department of Social Work and Development providing “diversion” and other interventions to turn delinquent children away from a path of adult crime.

PNP guards of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology are only supposed to support the center as perimeter security.

The center was supposed to be transformed into a “youth rehabilitation center”.

This work in progress is being steered by a management board headed by Regional Trial Court Judge Olegario Sarmiento and City Councilor Margot Osmeña, the forever “mother of street children” in Cebu City.

The transition to making it a more child-friendly but firmly handled institiution needs a budget,  one that the Cebu City Council has to pass, and fast. Pending allocations have not been moving along.

It also needs the hiring of trained child specialists, house parents committed to the tough job of  being guides for youths already led astray, and a competent management team.

We think this is one priority that intramurals in the Council will not defeat.

After this month’s youth uprising behind bars – a result of adult misbehaviour as it was youthful desperation – can the city government afford to have an overpopulated  center of more than 100 boys in mischief turn into a laboratory of juvenile criminals?