Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee says juveniles are never placed in the same holding facilities as adults at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Courts nor are they transported to detention centres in the same vehicles as adults.
Rohee made these statements in response to questions PNCR MP Volda Lawrence posed in the National Assembly recently. She had asked the minister to state whether juveniles were held in the same holding facilities as adults at the Court and whether they were transported in the same vehicles with adults. She had also asked what arrangements were in place for separating juveniles and adults when they are being transported to courts outside of Georgetown. In response to the second question, Rohee also said that the juveniles are never transported to court in the same vehicles as adults both within and without the city. Lawrence also asked the minister what plans were in place for rehabilitating the juvenile detention centre at the Ruimveldt Police Station. Rohee said he was not aware that such a facility existed.
Lawrence then asked Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Dr Frank Anthony, whether juveniles who served time at the New Opportunity Corps (NOC), Essequibo Coast, are monitored after they are released. She also quizzed him about the number of persons who had returned to the institution after being released and if upon their release they had broken the law over the last three years.
In response Anthony said the juveniles are not monitored after they have been released. He also said he could not determine how many juveniles, after release, had returned to the institution nor if they continued to lead criminal lifestyles. The minister said too that while the adolescents are at the NOC they are enrolled in vocational training programmes that equip them, upon release, to further the said studies or obtain employment.
Anthony said too that the NOC hosts a programme for the detainees’ parents to equip them with skills to help the adolescents reintegrate into their families and communities upon release.
