The Inter- sectoral Implementation of the Child Justice Act

1. The Inter-sectoral Implementation of the Child Justice Act Presented to the Select Committee on Security and Constitutional Development 23 October 2013

2. KEY FOCUS AREAS • Purpose of the presentation • Background and overview; • Governance structures; • Achievements on Key Priority Areas • Limitations • New Developments

3. Purpose of the Presentation • To give a brief overview of the progress in the intersectoral implementation of the Child Justice Act, which reflects on the achievements & limitations recorded during the 3rd year of the implementation; and • To give a comparison analysis of intersectoral performance, mainly in the past 2 years of implementation

4. BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW: • The Child Justice Act, 2008 came into effect on 1 April 2010, mainly to introduce a child justice system that ensures that children are treated in a manner that takes account of their age, as required by section 28 of the Constitution. • The Act provides for special measures to divert children in conflict with the law from the mainstream of CJS to the child justice system that is capacitated to assist them to break from the cycle of crime so as to mature into law-abiding and productive citizens. • s96 (3) of the Act requires the Minister to table in Parliament the Annual Progress Reports received from: • Dept of Justice and Constitutional Development; • National Prosecuting Authority; • SAPS, • Dept of Correctional Services; • Dept of Social Services; • Dept of Education; and • Dept of Health

5. GOVERNANCE STRUCTURES

6. KEY PRIORITY AREAS OF REPORTING • Building capacity in the sector; • Ensuring assessments of children; • Preliminary enquiries; • Sentencing; • Provision of Diversion and Alternative Sentencing Services; • Establishment of Child and Youth Care Centres; • Establishment of One Stop Child Justice Centres; • Resources and Budget; • Public Education and Communication; • Development of Necessary IT and IJS Systems to support Information Management

7. Building Skills Capacity (All reporting stakeholders) 7 278 personnel of all reporting stakeholders were trained in 2012/2013 to bring the total no of personnel trained since 2010 to 45 292

8. Building Skills Capacity

9. Infrastructural Capacity

10. Reduction in the bed capacity in Secure Care Facilities • The Minimum Norms and Standards requires each Secure Care to have a bed capacity of 60 to 120 beds, depending on the size of the infrastructure and the resource capacity. This is to avoid overcrowding. DSD has put mechanisms in place to ensure compliance with the Minimum Norms and Standards and this exercise resulted in the reduction of the bed capacity.

11. Establishment of OSCJC • Section 89 regulates the establishment of OSCJC. • One (1) OSCJC was established during 2012/2013. • Due to the lack of existing buildings that can be converted into OSCJC, and other practical challenges, the Dept has initiated a process of conducting a viability study on the continued establishment of OSCJC’s. • On the 14 Oct 13, the OPS ISCCJ conducted a workshop to explore challenges on the intersectoral establishment and management of OSCJC’s, and drafted a baseline document for the viability study.

12. Assessments of Children Assessments increased from 18 334 to 32 125

13. Innovations between SAPS & DSD There are some factors and corrective measures introduced by SAPS and DSD that contributed in the increased number of children assessed: No of charges against children decreased from 68 078 in 2011/12 to 57 721 in 2012/13; Local service agreements have been introduced between Police stations and Probation officers to outline operational commitments that expedites the management of children on a 24 hour basis; A Directory of Local Designated Probation Officers was developed by DSD, and made available to every local police station;

14. CONT: Innovations between SAPS & DSD An electronic information system is currently available which allows DSD to be informed via system-generated email of all children who should be assessed. However, efforts are in progress to improve this system by incorporating an acknowledgement functionality of the sent email to DSD. (DSD has to develop the system for the full solution via service oriented architecture)

15. Preliminary Inquiries

16. Referrals to the Children’s Courts • In terms of s50 of the Act the inquiry magistrate may stop the proceedings and order that the child be brought before a children’s court if it appears that the child is in need of care and protection or if the child is alleged to have committed a minor offence aimed at meeting the child’s basic needs for food and warmth.

17. Legal Aid Services in Preliminary Inquiries Legal Aid services were offered in 15 295 of the 25 517 preliminary inquiries conductedin 2012/2013

18. Legal Aid Services • The Act does not make it peremptory for children to be legally represented during the preliminary inquiry. • However, Legal Aid SA provides legal aid services in all cases where it is deemed necessary for the child to be assisted at preliminary inquiry stage of the proceedings. • There are no dedicated practitioners to assist with preliminary inquiries yet.

19. Diversions Increase of 2 228 diversion cases in Year 3

20. Increase in the number of diversions One of the central features of the new criminal justice system established for children through the implementation of the Act, is the creation of the possibility of diverting matters involving children in conflict with the law away for the criminal justice system. An increase in the number of diversions is therefore an important step in achieving one of the overall aims of the Act.

21. Summary of Accredited Diversion Service Providers and Programmes

23. Sentencing: Objectives (s69) • Ensure accountability for the harm caused; • Promote an individualised response that strikes a balance between: • the circumstances of the child; • the nature of the offence; • the interests of society. • Promote reintegration of child into family & community • Provide guidance, supervision, treatment or services towards integration

24. Sentences Imposed on Children

25. Sentences Imposed on Children • There is a growing achievement of the goals of the Act, which primarily promotes the imposition of non-custodial sentences instead of imprisonment sentences. Since 2010, a total number of 5 120 non-custodial sentences were imposed on children. • There has also been a significant drop in the number of children sentenced to imprisonment since 2010/2011 to 2012/2013 – from 536 to 98

27. Public Education and Communication Initiatives • Radio Broadcast Campaign – DoJ & CD in partnership with NPA and SAPS. Information about the Act. Broadcasted on 65 radios stations. • NPA participated in a Special Assignment programme on TV – mainly focusing on diversions. The aim was to highlight to the public that diversion is not a soft option for child offenders.

28. Public Education and Communication Initiatives • In November 2012, another radio panel discussion on the Child Justice Act was conducted where GCIS connected analysts with 8 radio stations. Listeners from all these stations were able to call in and have their questions answered. • Between October and November 2012, NPA staff members participated in the NPA/GCIS radio campaign coordinated by the Communications Unit, wherein radio station interviews were conducted covering different topics in the criminal justice system (CJS), one of which was the Act.

29. Departmental IT & Integrated Information Justice System

30. KEY LIMITATIONS

31. KEY LIMITATIONS

32. Amendments to the Act • Amendments to the Act were included in the Judicial Matters Amendment Bill B7 of 2013. • The Bill was approved by the Portfolio Committee on 2 October 2013. Some of the amendments gives effect to the Constitutional Court’s order in the matter Centre for Child Law v Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development and others 2009(2)SACR447(CC).