A growing number of Jamaican youths are spending their productive years behind bars, prompting calls for immediate intervention by children's advocate Mary Clarke.

Clarke particularly finds last year's figures troubling, as more than 200 juveniles were placed behind bars, three of them for murder, and 17 others for the illegal possession of firearm. The figure has pushed the total number of youths, aged 13 through to 18, in prison to 410 as at June 11 this year, up from 253 in 2006, 194 in 2005 and 128 in 2004.

Of the 203 youths who were newly incarcerated last year, 159 were males and 44 were females. In addition to murder and the illegal possession of firearm, they were imprisoned for a variety of other offences, among them shop-breaking and larceny, wounding, and assault.

The children's advocate maintains that fathers have to play a greater role in their children's lives if Jamaica is to curb youth violence.
"We have to encourage our men to father their children. Many of them are trying, but they really don't know how. We have had a lot of support for women over the years, but not for men," she told the Sunday Observer.

But Clarke's call for more men to take on greater parenting roles could prove difficult as the adult male prison population has also been growing.

But Clarke feels that there is hope for most Jamaican fathers, and it is for this reason that she has thrown her support behind the effort of the not-for-profit group, Fathers Incorporated to set up a resource centre for men.

The group, which has been in operation for the past 17 years, is intent on establishing a $1-million centre to provide men with counselling services, as well as information on fathering. It is to be supported by a staff of three, including a programme co-ordinator and two part-time counsellors.

Dr Herbert Gayle, anthropologist and president of Fathers Incorporated, agreed with Clarke. He said that there was no replacing fathers in children's lives.

"Jamaica cannot continue in its policy frames to assume that the basic family unit is a mother and child or children. Despite the reality that the single female parent household is popular in Kingston, the more stable family forms that exist in the rest of the country must be treated as the ideal we wish to generalise," writes Gayle in an article to the Sunday Observer. "The point here is not to question the value of mothers or to ridicule those who have grown up without a father or father figure. The simple point raised here is that each child, but especially a boy, needs both parents. Men nurture - not just provide money and protection."

He added that it was a nurturing that was distinct from that given by mothers.

"This nurture is very different from that of a woman and provides a balance in a child's life. Given this reality, policymakers and corporate Jamaica should pay more attention to promoting men as fathers and give greater support to groups that try to help fathers. This has not been the case in Jamaica," he concluded.

Meanwhile, head of the Correctional Services Department, Major Richard Reese said youths - particularly those in prison for "uncontrollable behaviour" - were confronted with parental issues and a lack of activities on which their time could be spent.

According to Reese, parents need to act quickly to arrest their children's bad behaviour.

"Parents need to take action when the challenges first emerge. Usually, they wait until things have gone very wrong and the child has acquired deviant behaviour and the process of getting rid of it is just as long as acquiring it," the former military man said. "It is (also) a case of parents not assisting the process because a lot of them are in denial. And it is not limited to any socio-economic group. It is everybody."

Meanwhile, Clarke said that intervention strategies would have to extend beyond support for fathers, if the crisis facing young people is to be averted.

"We are having more and more children in conflict with the law, and who are being brought in by parents for uncontrollable behaviour, so intervention strategies are needed at all levels," the children's advocate said.

As such, Clarke said that parenting, in general, has to be tackled, with mothers and fathers given the necessary tools to help their children in conflict resolution," she said.

Importantly, too, she said that crime in the society as a whole needed to be arrested.

"Children are living out what they are learning so we have to address this at the community level," Clarke said, noting that the violence was seeping into schools with more and more children being found with knives and other weapons.

This reality is supported by the statistics provided by the Correctional Services Department, which indicate that seven youths were incarcerated for possession of offensive weapons last year. Another 19 were incarcerated for wounding, one of whom was only 14 years old. A considerable number of them, 33, were imprisoned last year for shop-breaking and larceny while 42 were put in the care of the correctional system for "uncontrollable behaviour".

Criminologist Bernard Headley, for his part, said it was not surprising that the statistics should reflect an increase in the number of juveniles servin g hard time, given the situation in the wider Jamaican society.

What is necessary, he said, is for the society to take greater stock of its children.

"The environment as it is now is very weak and unsupportive of insulating our children from crime and criminality. All institutions responsible for how we grow children are going to have to come to bear on the situation," Headley said. "We start with the family. The education system is going to come next in line in a society that is changing as fast as this one is. Schools are going to have to come in earlier and earlier to fill that void, as well as the faith-based environment."

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