Admitting that some judges, police, and schools remain unaware of Jamaica’s Child Diversion Programme, Justice Minister Delroy Chuck says the Government is now moving to undertake a public education push to ensure more children benefit from the law designed to keep them out of the criminal justice system.

Chuck made the disclosure on Thursday during a meeting of the joint select committee reviewing the Child Diversion Act, where members heard from advocacy group Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ) that lack of awareness and persistent misconceptions are limiting the programme’s reach.

“I must tell you, a lot of the information that I gather, in terms of how judges interpret the Act, was because we had a meeting with them…and it is then and there, sitting there and listening to the judges, I realised how they misinterpreted and felt that the Act should be done this way,” Chuck said, adding that when police in the parishes were asked about the programme, some responded, “What is that, Sir?”

He noted that the Ministry of Justice is now looking to strengthen public education, including engaging professional communications support, to ensure stakeholders understand how the law works and how children can be referred.

“…We clearly need a PR [public relations] company to let Jamaicans know about the intricacies, all the details of the child diversion programme, and I must tell you members, I’ve had a discussion with my permanent secretary that we must push and elaborate all the different matters that relate to child diversion and other justice services…so that more Jamaicans — the stakeholders, the police officers, the judges — know more about how to refer matters to the child diversion officers,” Chuck told the committee.

Executive director for JFJ Mickel Jackson also warned that awareness remains low, particularly within law enforcement, despite ongoing training efforts.

She told the committee that in sessions involving the police only a small number were familiar with the programme.

“Between the last three years we trained perhaps about 300 or more police officers, and I can tell you, when doing those trainings, if we have a total of 10 officers who are familiar with the child diversion programme we would be generous in that number. So it means that we need to do the public education in law enforcement, and also with the defence counsel, because the awareness among attorneys, based on what we know, it is low, and it is something that we really do need to push. It’s very high among prosecutors, which is why we’re making recommendations for expanding the referral programme,” Jackson said.

As she stressed the need for greater public education, Jackson said a major misconception is that some police believe diversion only applies to sexual offences. She suggested that this misunderstanding, particularly in the early stages of the programme, may explain why the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) emerged as the primary referring agency.

She told the committee that, based on data obtained through Access to Information requests covering March 2020 to January 2024, the police made just 218 referrals to the diversion programme, all of which came from CISOCA and were largely related to sexual offence matters. In contrast, the courts made 1,234 referrals over the same period, highlighting a significant disparity between police and court referrals.

Jackson further revealed that when the court data was examined more closely, sexual offences accounted for 62 per cent of the completed diversion cases. These included charges such as sexual intercourse with a person under 16 and indecent assault, often appearing as stand-alone offences without accompanying charges, which, she said, suggested a pattern in how such matters were being handled within the system.

State minister in the Ministry of Justice Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert supported the call, arguing that broader awareness could play a role in tackling crime by intervening earlier in young people’s lives.

She noted that while outreach fairs are held in parishes, they reach only a limited audience, stressing the need for a PR company to ensure more Jamaicans are properly informed. “I don’t know if you recall when we started [the] ‘Two is better than too many’ [campaign], and it was all over until we have all heard it, and now you’re encouraging people to have two now. And I want to say that where we talk about crime and the levels of crime, it is at this stage that we can control crime if we grab our young people at this stage. So we are desperately waiting for you to get the funds for a PR company,” she expressed.