A J The­o­lade

In De­cem­ber 2013, five months be­fore she was killed, Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal called on what was then the new­ly-formed Child Pro­tec­tion Task Force to in­ves­ti­gate and con­sid­er how chil­dren ac­cused of acts of in­dis­ci­pline were be­ing trans­ferred from of­fi­cial or­phan­ages and in­dus­tri­al schools to the Gold­en Grove Prison for women in Arou­ca.

On De­cem­ber 12, a few days be­fore her state­ment to the press, See­ta­hal rep­re­sent­ed an 11-year-old girl who had been liv­ing at the St Do­minic's Chil­dren Home in Bel­mont, but had been sent by a mag­is­trate to the women's prison for breach­ing the rules of the or­phan­age. See­ta­hal said there were sev­en young girls in prison at the time of her state­ment.

There was a re­port in Feb­ru­ary, 2011, of a 15-year-old sent to Gold­en Grove af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed on charges of drug pos­ses­sion. An­oth­er in Oc­to­ber 2012 of two 15-year-olds re­mand­ed and sent to the women's prison for dis­or­der­ly con­duct, one for the use of ob­scene lan­guage. Pe­ri­od­ic me­dia sto­ries of young women un­der 18, sent to the women's adult cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ty in Arou­ca, give the im­pres­sion that the prac­tice is spo­radic. But the truth is that is a more com­mon one with, ac­cord­ing to mag­is­trates Jus­tice Bet­sy Ann Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son and Mag­is­trate Gail Gon­za­les, who agreed to ex­plain the trans­fer process to the T&T Guardian, "the num­ber of girls in jails is chang­ing week­ly."

Seat­ed side by side in a con­fer­ence room in the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain, Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son and Gon­za­les at­tempt to cov­er all the facts as they re­late to how girls can end up in prison. They claim that sen­sa­tion­alised me­dia re­ports un­der­mine the re­al­i­ty that es­pe­cial­ly in the un­der-16 age group, prison is a last re­sort, re­served for when all oth­er av­enues have been ex­haust­ed. They ex­press too that they wish to en­cour­age the view that while mag­is­trates are seen as re­spon­si­ble for the de­ci­sion, that the road to prison starts long be­fore them, of­ten with par­ents and care­givers who have ab­di­cat­ed their roles.

Un­der the Chil­dren Act when a child un­der the age of 14 is brought be­fore the court or has to be re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody, that child will go to an in­dus­tri­al school or to an or­phan­age. The in­dus­tri­al school for girls is St Jude's in Port-of-Spain, and the or­phan­age would ei­ther be St Do­minic's or the St Mary's Home in Tacarigua.

The most ob­vi­ous rea­son that a young girl is brought be­fore the court is when she has been ac­cused of a crim­i­nal of­fence–crimes like lar­ce­ny, pos­ses­sion of drugs, and break­ing and en­ter­ing. But one of "the in­creas­ing av­enues" through which young girls un­der 15 are be­ing seen in court is for "be­ing be­yond con­trol," which, says Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son, could mean a num­ber of things.

"Be­cause of the so­cial cir­cum­stances of the par­ents," she says, "it may very well be that a child may be not in a po­si­tion to be well-su­per­vised by the par­ent and may not ad­here to sim­ple in­struc­tions of the par­ent and the par­ent is just over­whelmed." Or, she says, young girls may be keep­ing bad com­pa­ny and par­ents feel un­able to con­trol their ac­tions. Yet an­oth­er route is when a young girl may have been a vic­tim of a crime and is in­sti­tu­tion­alised for her own safe­keep­ing while al­le­ga­tions are be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. The range of rea­sons for re­mand to the afore­men­tioned in­sti­tu­tions means that young girls who are vic­tims are of­ten housed, es­pe­cial­ly in the case of St Jude's, with those ac­cused of a crime.

Gon­za­les ex­plains that out­side of girls get­ting ex­pelled from an or­phan­age or the in­dus­tri­al school, there is no dif­fi­cul­ty in terms of where girls 15 and un­der are placed, when re­mand­ed. The greater prob­lem she says, lies in the 16-18-year-old age group, where "there is no in­sti­tu­tion that we can place them ... these young women are be­ing sent to prison cause there is no oth­er place to put them." In this age group, once con­vict­ed of a crime, a young woman will be deemed an adult and sent to the women's prison.

Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son ex­plains the leg­is­la­tion un­der which young women are sent to prison was writ­ten when "his­tor­i­cal­ly young women did not com­mit those of­fences and so there was no need ... but cer­tain­ly for the past 20 years there has been a phe­nom­e­nal in­crease in terms of young women be­ing charged with crim­i­nal of­fences."

"When we look at the leg­is­la­tion," says Gon­za­les, "it isn't gen­der-bi­ased–there is a youth of­fend­ers de­ten­tion act–it doesn't spec­i­fy whether it is male or fe­male but when you look at the reg­u­la­tions un­der the act they specif­i­cal­ly speak of reg­u­la­tions ac­cord­ing to males but there is no reg­u­la­tion that refers to fe­males."

"We have re­alised this la­cu­na ex­ist­ing, cer­tain­ly in the 15 to 18 years that we have been sit­ting but there has nev­er been any res­o­lu­tion."

For young men of the same age, charged with sim­i­lar crimes, there is the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre (YTC). Here, at least in the­o­ry and un­der guid­ing reg­u­la­tions, a range of ser­vices can be ac­cessed on-site in­clud­ing train­ing, coun­selling and oth­er so­cial ser­vices.

The cen­tre caters to young men in an ex­tend­ed age range of 15-21.

Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son points out that if con­vict­ed even a day be­fore he turns 18, po­ten­tial­ly a young man can ac­cess the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive ser­vices of YTC for three years past le­gal adult­hood – in her opin­ion, an ad­van­tage young male of­fend­ers have over their fe­male coun­ter­parts, for whom there are no youth pro­tec­tive ser­vices af­ter age 16.

"I think it's a bit un­fair," says Gon­za­les, "be­cause if you look at the tenor and the in­tent of the reg­u­la­tions for youth of­fend­ers, the in­tent is re­al­ly to fa­cil­i­tate his ref­or­ma­tion, ed­u­ca­tion and the re­pres­sion of crime and it is my view that when some of these young women ...the ones charged with the pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na, the ones charged with prob­a­bly burn­ing their ba­by's hands, the ones charged with lar­ce­ny [who] you have no place to send but to prison...the kind of train­ing and arrange­ment and fa­cil­i­ty and so­cial ser­vices that are avail­able for a male of­fend­er, they don't have that ben­e­fit."

She high­lights too, that when a young man is sent to YTC, af­ter serv­ing his sen­tence his con­vic­tion is sealed. For young women, how­ev­er, be­cause they have to be charged as adults, their con­vic­tion will fol­low them for the rest of their lives.

The ad­van­tages do not end there. While ad­mit­ting that she doesn't know how of­ten it is used, Gon­za­les says a young man sent to YTC, "can be re­leased on a li­cence from the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons at any point in time once he is sat­is­fied that there is a re­spon­si­ble adult, that they are no longer a threat to so­ci­ety or what­ev­er so even though we sen­tence them, let's say they are 16 and we sen­tence them to a course of train­ing for four years, they are sup­posed to come out at 20 and by the time they reach 17 they set­tle down, pur­su­ing ed­u­ca­tion, par­ents in­volved, the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons is free un­der the act to say ok I am re­leas­ing you on li­cence. The li­cence can be re­voked but you can go back to your fam­i­ly."

"In the ab­sence of a sim­i­lar fa­cil­i­ty for the fe­males," she con­tin­ues, "they are de­nied that." Gon­za­les ex­plains that if at 16 a young woman is con­vict­ed for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na, she will be con­sid­ered an adult for sen­tenc­ing pur­pos­es be­cause she can no longer be sent to St. Jude's. "Let's say I sen­tence you for 12 months or what­ev­er," she says, "the point is you have to do your sen­tence. The Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons can't say you are a young per­son so I can let you out on li­cence."

Even in the wake of such gross in­equal­i­ty, the sto­ries of young women over the age of 16 sent to Gold­en Grove, are not usu­al­ly the ones that make the head­lines. The burn­ing ques­tion re­mains, but how does an 11-year-old girl end up in prison?

In Part II, the ju­rists of­fer al­ter­na­tives to putting young girls in jail and how the sit­u­a­tion can be dealt with by im­prov­ing fam­i­ly life and par­ent­ing.