RIGHTS Group Jamaicans for Justice has written an open letter to Education Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon, pressing for the 2023 amendments to the Child Care and Protection Act to be brought into force no later than January 2026 so as to halt the continued admission of children into custody for being “uncontrollable”.

Executive director of JFJ Mickel Jackson said while the ministry had in February this year indicated that arrangements were being made to prepare suitable facilities and complete other arrangements by the beginning of the 2026 fiscal year for children deemed “uncontrollable”, the fact that the “Act still remains unenforced is of grave concern”.

In 2023 Parliament amended the Act to, among other things, bring an end to locking up children who have not committed a criminal offence but who have been deemed “uncontrollable”. Section 24 of the legislation, which allowed for the court to make correctional orders for children brought before it by a parent or guardian who felt the child was uncontrollable, was also repealed.

Then Education Minister Fayval Williams told Parliament at the time that, “as soon as the law is passed it will stop using the term ‘uncontrollable’ and instead use the term ‘behavioural issues’, and make provisions for the orders that may be made by the court, in respect of such a child, to include a residential therapeutic order or a non-residential therapeutic order, having regard to the results of a social inquiry report and a physiological or psychiatric report”.

However, a March 2025 report carried by this newspaper found that a breakdown of the data contained within the Chief Justice’s Fiscal Year Statistics Report 2023/2024 on the Specialised Family Courts of Jamaica showed that a total 661 “childcare and protection” cases were filed in those courts and 280 “uncontrollable child” matters.

JFJ, which on Monday released the results of its review of the Diversion and Alternative Measures for Children in Conflict with the Law in Jamaica, said at the time of drafting that report it had been advised by the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) that as of October 31, 2023, 60 children were in custody on the basis of being “uncontrollable”. According to JFJ, based on the response from the DCS it had noted that each year, numbers of children were being newly admitted into various juvenile facilities on the basis of being uncontrollable. The group said those figures showed, 12 in 2020, 12 in 2021, 12 in 2022, 10 in 2023, and 17 in 2024.

“Given the clear legislative intent to repeal the provision under Section 24 of the Child Care and Protection Act, we are concerned that the numbers appear to be increasing rather than decreasing, particularly in the post-passage period,” JFJ stated.

It said while it understood the fiscal constraints and the needs for retrofitting facilities to meet the highest standards for specialised care, it was “troubled that more than two years after the passage of the Act the amendment is still not in force and children continue to be incarcerated for this non-offence”.

“Of note, while the Child Diversion Act has been effective in diverting matters away from the formal justice system, children continue to be brought before the courts in circumstances where diversion should clearly be treated as the first and preferred response. As outlined in our report — data received notably in St James, Hanover, Westmoreland, Manchester, Clarendon, and St Catherine accounting for 658 referrals — a significant proportion, 40 per cent or 264, involved children deemed “uncontrollable” reflecting reliance on courts for behavioural interventions under the provision.

JFJ said, based on the concerns raised, it is urging that the amendment be brought into full force no later than January 31, 2026.

“If the intention is to prevent children from being criminalised for behavioural issues, then fewer children should need to be institutionalised and appropriate measures sought for them,” JFJ said.

It added that the need to have more facilities retrofitted first — taking into account the Maxfield Park Therapeutic Centre opened in June 2023 and the St James facility, retrofitted in 2023 and opened in January 2025 — suggests that the authorities anticipate the number of children being institutionalised under the replaced provision for behavioural challenges to be of the same magnitude.

“These preparations appear to focus primarily on residential therapeutic orders, while seemingly ignoring the additional amended provision that addresses non-residential therapeutic orders which could be managed outside of the facility,” JFJ said.

The group also reaffirmed an offer to provide attorneys to assist with legal representation so that such matters can be brought before the courts to have the orders for those children varied where appropriate. JFJ said in a similar vein, where children have reached the age of 18, in those cases they are not released but brought to adult facilities.

“If such matters exist it is in the interest of justice for their matters to be reviewed before the courts so that they can be released,” Jackson said while acknowledging that some matters might require that the child be released on licence rather than unconditionally.

In the meantime, JFJ has made it clear that it has no objections to the time being taken to build or retrofit facilities in keeping with international standards, but said its insistence is to ensure that the “long-standing, unjust law of uncontrollable children needs to be addressed with haste”.

Under the Child Care and Protection Act, and its amendment, a child is considered “in need of care and protection” in circumstances including where the child is (a) having no parent or guardian, or having a parent or guardian unfit to exercise care and guardianship, or not exercising proper care and guardianship, is falling into bad associations, or is exposed to moral danger; (b) is being cared for in circumstances in which the child’s physical or mental health or emotional state is being seriously impaired or there is a substantial risk that it will be seriously impaired; (c) is a child in respect of whom any offence mentioned in the Second Schedule has been committed or attempted to be committed; (d) is a member of the same household as a child in respect of whom such an offence has been committed; (e) is a member of the same household as a person who has been convicted of such an offence in respect of a child; or (f) is a child with behavioural challenges.

The Second Schedule outlines specific offences, primarily violent or sexual in nature.