With three state-of-the-art classrooms and

other facilities set to come into operation at the South Camp Juvenile

Correctional and Remand Centre in St. Andrew, officials say wards will further

excel in their educational pursuit.

The new additions will be accommodated in a

multipurpose centre, to be completed by the end of the year. The centre will

also have an information and communications technology (ICT) room, and a

section for the teaching of cosmetology, geared at making the wards marketable

when they leave the institution.

Superintendent at the centre, Maulette

White, told JIS News that the girls have been doing exceptionally well in their

Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) examinations, with 100 per cent passes in several

subjects, and the new facilities will benefit them.

“I am most excited for the students and the teachers who will benefit,” she said at the recent ground-breaking ceremony.

Financing for the centre is being provided

by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as part of

the project, ‘A New Path: Promoting a Healthy Environment and Productive

Alternatives for Juvenile Remandees and Offenders in Jamaica’, implemented by

the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States, through its

Department of Public Security, working with its affiliate, The Trust for the

Americas.

Meanwhile, State Minister in the Ministry

of National Security Rudyard Spencer, lauds the facility and the “life

changing” experiences that will be provided for the young girls, as the

Government and its partners are “ensuring that the best practices and

international standards are adhered to in this modern design”.

He also informed that reports out of the

Department of Correctional Services (DCS), indicate that incidents of conflict

have been reduced inside the Centre, due to the environment becoming more

conducive to the development of offenders under the rehabilitation programmes.

“Preliminary data show that during 2015 and

2016, only 33 of the 713 young people who were released from two juvenile

facilities have returned to the same or a different correctional facility,” the

state minister explained.

Commissioner of Corrections, Lieutenant

Colonel (Retired) Gary Rowe, says the new building will offer opportunities to

“our teachers to operate and our wards to be in a comfortable space, and to get

the messages that will lead to individual transformation”.

For his part, Deputy Chief of Mission for

USAID in Jamaica, John McIntyre, says the purpose of the centre is to transform

young people who end up on the wrong side of the law, and to enable them to

become “respectable citizens”.

He adds that the ultimate goal of the project is

“full education” for the youth who pass through the correctional facility, so

that they are “empowered to lead a productive life, and can contribute to their

country in meaningful ways”.