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Children
who have broken the law are nowadays called “children in
conflict with the law,” or CICL. Before, they were
referred to as “youth offenders.”
CICLs,
or children and youth who have been convicted of a
crime, are shunned in our society. We understand and
feel for children who are victims of crime and violence,
but we also turn our back or condemn easily children who
commit crimes.
When you
look at it from a higher and, I dare say, more
intelligent, more humane perspective, a child who is a
victim of a crime and a child who has committed a crime
are both victims, and if you simplify further, they are
simply—children.
In April
last year, Congress passed a law that aims to change how
our judicial system deals with children in conflict with
the law. Before this law was passed, CICLs or youth
offenders were subjected to the same treatment as adults
who committed and were charged with a crime. They are
arrested, arraigned in court and jailed.
In the
new Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006, or
Republic Act 9344, CICLs are given an alternative
process. It is called “diversion.”
Under
diversion, the offender is required to undergo
conferencing. The victim, the offender and their parents
are brought together in front of a social worker who
will moderate and facilitate the conference between the
two parties. The crime and its impact on the victim will
be discussed.
The
offender is encouraged to explain why he or she
committed the crime. The system expects that this will
provide the offender a chance to ask for forgiveness for
the crime, while he or she internalizes the other side
of the fence.
The
conference also aims to get the offender and the victim
a chance to agree on the appropriate punishment for the
offense committed. Minor offenses could result, as
agreed by both parties, in community service,
appropriate payment, or a seminar as opposed to
languishing in jail.
Agreements will be placed under a “contract of
diversion,” to be signed by all the parties involved in
the conference. The offender must abide by the
agreements in the contract, or the case moves to the
formal court. The social worker will track and supervise
if the offender is honoring all the agreements in the
contract.
Several
barangays in
Quezon City
have started to implement diversion. According to the
Social Services and Development Department (SSDD), they
are presently handling 55 CICL cases in the community,
and 45 of these cases are undergoing diversion. These
are being supervised directly by their social workers.
Let us
pray for this new system for it offers a chance for our
children to realize their mistake and rectify it without
having to suffer for life the stigma and the label
associated with being a convict.
Beloved
Pope John Paul II in his Jubilee Message on Prisons,
said, “For all to play their part in building the common
good, they must work in the measure of their competence,
to ensure that prisoners have the means to redeem
themselves, both as individuals and in their relations
to society.”
Children
who commit crimes should not be viewed or labelled as
plain criminals. They are first and foremost, children.
Catholic
Social Teaching states: “Sometimes, people who lack
adequate resources from early in life [i.e. children,
especially those who have been physically, sexually or
emotionally abused, the mentally ill and people who have
suffered discrimination] turn to lives of crime in
desperation or out of anger or confusion. . . .
Solidarity recognizes that ‘we are all really
responsible for all’. . . . Solidarity calls us to
insist on responsibility and seek alternatives that do
not simply punish, but rehabilitate, heal and restore.”
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