„Juvenile Delinquency” – Stories

All important people have once been children, but few of them recall that. (Karl May).

Between the 18th and the 20th of November 2008, the city of Cluj hosted the conference titled „Juvenile Delinquency”, an event organized by ELSA Cluj-Napoca, together with our partners-Prison Fellowship Romania, and The Centre for Children Exposed to Crimes.

The academic program managed to bring together all the institutions that are active in the field of juvenile delinquency and to initiate an interinstitutional communication, which would serve the purpose of informing students and specialists, as well as identifying several useful methods of preventing and coping with this phenomenon.

The social part tried to place orphaned and delinquent children from the two centres in the limelight, to show them that they are important and accepted and that their work is appreciated.

During the first days, 18 presentations were given by specialists representing the following institutions: Cluj Police Department, UBB Law Faculty, Gherla Prison, Prosecutor of The High Court of Justice, Cluj Bar Association, Legal Medicine Institute Cluj, Juvenile Psychiatry Clinic, Cluj Judicial Court, Testimonials service, Social Assistance and Child Protection Office,School Office, Prison Fellowship. The debates embodied multiple points of view and they all lead to the conclusion that the lack of a specialised criminal system which deals with under-ages is hampering fair justice, because currently there are no professionals (judges, prosecutor, police officers) and no legislative frame to deal with cases concerning under-ages, and these children are judged in the same manner as adults.

During the workshop, specialists discussed a case study, which involved a small boy, who, during his childhood, was obliged to watch every day how his father was maltreating his mother. Surprisingly, although the people in this case were presented as anynymous, each of the representatives of the guest institutions recalled the situation and discussed what each of them had done to solve that problem, what they should have done better and what they should have avoided. Nothing came out to be truly satisfactory because basically, it is an individual decision of each specialist whether to work with unde-ages in a different manner, or to treat them in the same way an adult would be treated (which in general is the case). At the moment, the laws don’t offer any help – many ideas which were presented during the workshops are currently real proposals for future laws; ideas which were formulated by people who want to change something, who know that they should work better and who still, are left in a frustrated state: Within the current system, under-ages are treated superficially, because the laws were probably put forward by people who forgot what it’s like to be a child.

The exhibition which was organized during the conference, alongside with the games which challenged the children, were an attempt  to make them jollier and to let them understand that we care about them, that we are aware of their existence and that we appreciate them for all their work and the efforts they take in order to surpass their condition and to reintegrate in the society…Maybe if more people volunteered to work in these centres, children would be free of the influence of the personnel that takes care of them, since these employees have too few time to be preoccupied by each and every one of them. We are sure that in every city, there are people who could volunteer for this..and it would be a time they could invest for a noble purpose.

The conference „Juvenile delinquency”, organized this week by Elsa Cluj-Napoca together with Prison Fellowship Association, has aroused the interest of the public and professionals who are preoccupied by this social phenomenon.

The first day, filled with enthusiasm and agitation, proved the organizers that the subject they have chosen for the conference was one very adequate to contemporary issues. The first guests presented the factors in areas like society, media and lifestyle that can lead to juvenile delinquency. The points of view exposed by representatives of police forces and prisons, by social assistents, physchologists and prosecutors, have offered a mind-baffling, yet wide approach on the status-quo of juvenile delinquency in Romania and also at a European level. Criminal Law issues were presented in a detailed manner by various speakers, thus leading to strong debates between the representatives of the institutions involved. They reached a consensus regarding the incapacity of the current laws to improve the situation of the affected persons. Of course, coffee-breaks offered a great chance for the participants to have a discussion with the guest speakers.

Juvenile delinquency embodies multiple downsides of society. During the workshops which took part in the last day of the conference, common debate has lead to some conclusions regarding the situation of children who are marginalised by the society they live in. Whereas special laws do not offer adecquate solutions in criminal cases which deal with under-ages, the institutions are unable to effectively collaborate with eachother in order to develop a common solution which can serve a common purpose. The final conclusion is unfortunately demotivating, since these under-ages who suffer from behavioral problems, along with illiteracy and lack of minimal survival knowledge, are getting lost somewhere amongst institutions whose activity is limited by laws.

Bearing in mind all the arguments presented above, juvenile delinquency can be fought against, by modifying the competence of the institutions, as well as trying to effectively educate the society. It doesn’t suffice to simply say that juvenile delinquency concerns us all. Due to it, children, who bear resentment towards the concept of family, whose lives are boundered and whose souls don’t dare to hope for a better live, ask for help.