Enhancing the capacity of correctional services to work with sentenced minors

Fostering capacity-building of professionals working with institutionalized youngsters and sharing best practices in Europe are the goals of a new transnational European initiative partnered by IPS_Innovative Prison Systems.

Despite its support to governments and civil society in promoting alternatives to detention, UNICEF has highlighted that many children around the world are handed down custodial sentences as a result of being tried for their criminal acts. In Europe, the latest data by the Council of Europe shows a total of 5,610 inmates below the age of 18, while the number of minors on probation amounts to 25,175, across its Member-States.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes, among others, that States must recognise the right of every child who has infringed the penal law to be treated in a manner “consistent with the promotion of the child’s sense of dignity and worth”.

Furthermore, the treaty states that countries should make a variety of measures available to ensure the successful social reintegration of minors in conflict with the penal law. Hence States are expected to provide care, guidance, counselling, foster care, education, and vocational training.

Globally, the ‘United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice’ recommends the implementation of several custodial and non-custodial measures. In the latter, children should receive care, protection, social assistance, educational, vocation, psychological, medical, and physical measures tailored to their development. For the former, the document highlights lodging, educational or vocational training, employment or other measures that address the goal of facilitating the rehabilitative process.

For UNICEF, it is essential that there are measures in place to “allow children to recover and reintegrate with their families and local communities through specialised reintegration plans, tailored to the needs of each child”.

However, for the millions of children interacting with justice systems around the world, the reality is that justice institutions are not always equipped to fulfil their fundamental rights and needs.

Staff training as a crucial foundation to ensure the rights of sentenced yougsters

The European Judicial Training Strategy 2021-2024 specifically highlights the training of correctional (prison and probation) staff as a cornerstone for the respect for fundamental rights during detention and ensuring successful rehabilitation. Furthermore, it underlines the rights of children as one of the areas that require both specialised training and coverage.

At the European Union and international levels, several documents, such as the Council of Europe Guidelines on child-friendly justice and the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, also pinpoint the need for increased awareness regarding child-friendly training of prison and probation staff. And such training should encompass the before, during, and after of judicial proceedings, and prison and probation events.

Unfortunately, the number and diversity of training courses, e-learning modules, and resources directed at front-line personnel working in correctional settings dealing with juvenile offenders remain low. Accordingly, dedicated training platforms lack courses tailored to this group of professionals and add to an overall reduced number of training materials on child-friendly justice and children’s rights. Ultimately, this creates a worrying gap between declaration of intent, policy, and practice.

ARISA Child: A new initiative dedicated to improving child-friendly justice across Europe

The ARISA Child project aims to understand the issues mentioned above and contribute to an increased capacity of correctional and educational services working with sentenced children.

The project will follow a three-step process. First, the partnership will develop a broad and detailed assessment of the specific training needs of professionals working with institutionalized youngsters.

Then, the project will strive to stimulate experience-sharing between partner countries’ practitioners and front-line personnel. The objective is two-fold: to allow these services to learn from the experience of others and to promote the transfer of effective working practices into their own settings.

Finally, and building on the first two steps, ARISA Child will provide professionals who work with institutionalized youngsters with a state-of-art online training course. The programme will focus on enhancing the capacity of front-line personnel to work with the children in their care and contribute to their successful reintegration into society.