TWIN TEEN TERROR

WESTERN BUREAU:

A chilling threat by her 14-year-old son that he will kill himself if she does not get him out of the Rio Cobre Juvenile Correctional Centre has been causing a Westmoreland woman great anguish as her twin sons allege they are being abused at the state facility.

“Mi nuh want to be at my yard and hear that my son hang himself. I want to know if the officers are right to beat and abuse my children,” the Westmoreland woman – whom The Gleaner has decided to call JB to protect the identities of the minors – told our newsroom.

She said that her twin teenage sons have been experiencing abuse since they were placed at the St Catherine-based facility in 2020. They have told her of various episodes of unprovoked physical assault by a member of staff.

“I went to the Child Development Agency because the children were uncontrollable, and they were placed at the Rio Cobre facility,” she said, referring to the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) by its former name.

“One of them was placed there in 2020, and he is supposed to be released this month, and the other one was placed there last year. But I am no longer comfortable for them to stay in state care because it makes no sense for them to stay in state care and people are abusing them,” JB said.

She told The Gleaner that she was contacted by the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), which notified her of the alleged abuse.

“My sons were abused and beaten wickedly by the [staff member], and one of my sons attempted to hang himself twice,” JB said. “I need my sons to go home because they are in fear, because the [staff member] continues to threaten them and they are beating them wickedly.”

The woman said that her suicidal son has reported numerous instances where he had also been deprived of food.

“I got a phone call and my son said to me, ‘Mommy, if you don’t free me, mi a go kill myself’, because the [staff member] threatened him. Mi can’t manage that one,” JB said in a tearful voice. “Him say, ‘Mommy, mi a get abused, mi hungry, dem a treat me bad’. I have never ill-treated my sons. I never beat them. I just carried them to [the CPFSA] to control them, but they are being abused. Mi can’t work with that. I need them to come home right now.”

Yanique Taylor-Wellington, director of complaints for INDECOM’s South Eastern Region, confirmed that the agency has been in contact with JB in relation to the allegations and that follow-up visits with the suicidal son have been scheduled.

“The investigator has been in contact with the mother consistently since the beginning, and up to last Friday was the last time they spoke with her. Action has been on this file from the beginning, and she has been told specifically of the steps and how it is that our investigations progress,” said Taylor-Wellington.

“Checks have been made since then, and the officers have been given notice for them to provide their statements on the matter. The mother’s concern was more that she was getting some run-around in respect of the [suicidal] ward’s court date, but she acknowledged that she is pretty clear as to where we are with our investigation,” Taylor-Wellington added. “We are in very close contact with the ward himself, and there is a visit slated to see him some time this week.”

Efforts to contact administrators at the Rio Cobre Juvenile Correctional Centre for a comment were unsuccessful, as calls to the facility’s listed numbers were restricted.

Last February, reports surfaced that correctional officers were subjecting wards to human-rights abuses. At that time, INDECOM had reported wards were being stripped down to their underwear when they were being locked away for non-violent offences such as ‘talking back’ or being absent from the dormitory at lockdown time.

Senator Matthew Samuda, then minister with oversight of the island’s correctional facilities, had also declared that children, who were deemed ‘uncontrollable’ by the courts, should not have been sent to juvenile correctional facilities.

Some 200 juveniles were detained in the island’s four such facilities up to February this year.

The conditions under which juvenile wards are held in custody is a grave concern for Mickel Jackson, executive director of human-rights lobby Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ).

“JFJ is very concerned ... about the reports of how the State is treating our children who are within its care. We note a 2018 report that came from INDECOM which spoke of several violations that were committed by the State, including inadequate access to education and psychosocial support, and we cannot help but raise the concern given the fact that the issues that emanated from the Armadale tragedy, in terms of lack of institutional and infrastructural support, have still not adequately been dealt with,” Jackson told The Gleaner.

She was referencing the St Ann-based Armadale Juvenile Correctional Centre, which was destroyed by a fire that killed seven female wards and injured several others in 2009.

“The reports of allegations of abuse by the caregivers are still cause for concern, and we are questioning the Government in terms of the lack of urgency that is seemingly present in addressing these major human-rights violations that are being experienced by children,” Jackson said, adding that the continued detention of “uncontrollable” children was still a major concern.

For JB, the alleged abuse is making her anxious as she pleads for the release of her boys.

“Mi just a pray for them to come out. The poor little pickney a stress out,” she told The Gleaner.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com