Children and the State: Care and Crime

• Author: Fara Brown
• Profession: Attorney-at-law practising in Jamaica for over 30 years
• Pages: 348-375

9. Children and the State:

Care and Crime

1. INTRODUCTION

2. THE CHILD CARE AND PROTECTION ACT

3. PART I: PROTECTION OF AND OFFENCES AGAINST CHILDREN

4. PART II: EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN

5. PART III: CHILDREN IN CARE

6. PART IV: CHILDREN DETAINED AND BROUGHT BEFORE THE

COURT

7. PART V: ADMINISTRATION AND ENFORCEMENT

8. PROCEDURE UNDER THE CHILD CARE AND PROTECTION ACT

9. CHILDREN AND THE CRIMINAL LAW

10. THE WAY FORWARD

INTRODUCTION

Maxine and her 13 year old daughter, Paula stood before

the Family Court. Maxine wrings her hands as she explains

her plight to the judge. Paula has not been attending school

regularly for the last four months, and it wasn’t until the guidance

counsellor at Paula’s school notied her that Paula had been in

a ght with another girl that Maxine became aware of it. When

questioned about where she was going during school hours,

Paula eventually disclosed that she was ‘hanging out’ with

‘friends’ in a dangerous part of the city. Maxine took drastic

steps and began escorting Paula to school (after the two-week

suspension for ghting had elapsed) and grounded her. Paula

began to sneak out at night and when Maxine challenged her

about it, a ght ensued. When Maxine went to the police,

Paula stood in front of the police and threatened to burn down

Children and the State

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the house where they lived. Maxine ends her lament to the

judge with the words ‘I can’t deal with it anymore, mi want yu

just tek her!’

Throughout the time that Maxine is speaking to the judge,

Paula is silent, brooding, and looks menacingly at Maxine.

Traditionally, parents in Jamaica (as in much of the world), have

viewed their children as just another one of their possessions with

which they could do more or less, what they pleased. Yes, there

was the obligation to grow them in the ‘right and proper way’,

but that was subject to the means, capacity, and benevolence of

the overseeing parent. This person, quite often, was not even a

biological parent of the child. The care of the child also could be

affected by whatever exigencies arose along the way – the migration

or death of a parent, the loss or change of the parent’s employment,

even weather conditions, particularly in farming communities, could

affect the way a child was or was not cared for. In rural communities,

children often have a part to play in the agricultural process, whether

it is helping with sowing or reaping, or storage or selling, or, at the

very least, accompanying those who do. Children may be required

to care for younger children while the adults are outside of the

home, and unfortunately, in some situations, they may be required

to go out and undertake some income-producing activity, such as

begging, in order to contribute to the household.1

Disciplining children is often seen in the context of the biblical

edict ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’, and this may be used as

justication, in some instances, for unconscionable physical abuse,

which paradoxically, we may well boast of in adulthood. The danger,

of course, is that this becomes the template for how we treat our

children and the next generation will be similarly scarred.

1. Contrary to section 41 of the Child Care and Protection Act.