EARLY intervention is needed to prevent young people committing serious crimes and being sent to Greenfields, the acting children’s commissioner has said, as she called on ministers to act ‘with pace’ to enact the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry recommendations.
Three highly critical reports into the Island’s secure children’s unit have been released in the past 12 months, and Andrea Le Saint believes that now is the ‘opportune time’ to evaluate the criminal justice system’s relationship with young people.
Her comments follow Jersey Care Commission reports published in November 2021 and March this year and a follow-up report, released last month, in which the authors said that four of the 12 recommendations for improvement made in March remained outstanding, while an additional area of concern had been identified.
An urgent improvement notice was served on the unit to address the three action points, with the threat that failure to do so could lead to the commission referring the matter to the Attorney General, which could lead to prosecution under the Island’s care laws.
Mrs Le Saint said: ‘We have had concerns about Greenfields for a while. This time last year, we did an unannounced visit and, following that, we reported to the Care Commission our concerns, which triggered the first improvement notice.
‘At the moment, Greenfields is empty to the best of my knowledge. That means it is a good time for us to look at Greenfields and evaluate what can happen. We know that putting children in secure units doesn’t stop offending behaviour and what happens to the child going into [such a unit] is that things fall away – things like education, connections with family members, association with peers. All these things are impacted when a child is placed in a secure unit.’
One of the main concerns in the latest improvement notice from the JCC was that education provision for one child in care was not in place at the start of the new term in September. The report added that what had been offered to the child was ‘woefully inadequate to meet their needs’.
Mrs Le Saint, who took over from former commissioner Deborah McMillan in an acting capacity in the summer, added: ‘I think right now is a really opportune time to say that what we have done before has not worked.
‘I know that the government is looking at diversion and restorative practices. I would like to see that implemented. I think we need pace in doing that.
‘Government is working on earlier intervention – seeing children in conflict with the criminal justice system and acting. It should be remembered that those placed there should only be [those who have carried out] the most serious of offences and we are lucky that those kind of offences do not happen very often in Jersey. What we want is those interjections earlier in children’s lives. The Probation Service is working on a project with young people and that is something I would like to see developed more.’
The closure of Greenfields was recommended in the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry panel’s 2017 report, which documented decades of child abuse and systemic failings which allowed the abuse to go uncovered.
The panel suggested an overhaul of legislation under which the youth justice system would move to a model which treated young offenders as children first and offenders second. Within that recommendation, the panel suggested that Greenfields be demolished, as it considered it ‘entirely unsuitable for the care and welfare of children’.
Earlier this year, panel member Sandy Cameron criticised the lack of progress made during the previous government’s term of office, which prompted Chief Minister Kristina Moore to confirm that she would lead on delivering the findings of the inquiry. In her ministerial plans for this term of office, Deputy Moore again reaffirmed this commitment.
Mrs Le Saint said: ‘We know that the recommendations from the care inquiry haven’t been implemented in full. The Chief Minister has said that she will take responsibility on those recommendations. That needs to happen at pace now.
‘We have a new Council of Ministers and hopefully that Council of Ministers understands the necessity to progress and meet the recommendations of the care inquiry.’
