A boy, in the middle of a workshop in downtown Kingston aimed at rehabilitating youngsters who the courts have placed on probation, may have forgotten why he was there when he lifted a chair to hit another.

A young girl, in defence of the other boy, pushed him off, saying ‘stop, stop’, forcing the intervention of probation officers who hauled both boys away from the workshop.

“It’s really to let them know what their options are and for them to access them as much as possible,” senior probation officer Mabel Morris said.

After the workshop, the boy who had lifted the chair attributed his behaviour to his ‘little temper problem’, but said he was working on it.

He said he had at least learnt how to treat a girl from a presentation on etiquette done by Janet Williams.

But Williams’ material was just about the lightest that the youngsters had to digest. They learnt from Daniel Brown of the National Council on Drug Abuse that 70 per cent of students between the ages of eight and 16, were either taking drugs, or have tried drugs at least once, based on a survey the done by the council.

Brown’s main aim was to get the probationers to understand that they have control over their lives, and should not believe negative proclamations others may make about them.

One girl, in response, said: “Sometimes is not you enuh, but teacher tell you, ‘you dunce yuh nah come out to nutten’. You go home and you parents tell you di same ting so you jus seh ‘arite, mi nah come out to nutten’.”

Deputy Commissioner of the Correctional Service Aileen Stephens told the young audience, which was primarily made up of boys, that 92 per cent of the population of adult correctional facilities in Jamaica were men, while just under 400 were juveniles. She said there were also an additional 4, 000 people on probation or in community service

“You will have to make sure that you get out of the situation where you remain a part of our statistics,” Stephens said, while charging the youngsters to put probation officers out of a job.

Morris said the Probation Office would be holding similar workshops in June this year, with the aim of reaching the youngsters on a more personal level, by placing them in smaller groups.