Articles
Juvenile Detention Facilities in Sierra Leone: An Up-Date
By Katy Glenn and Hawa Kamara
Jun 3, 2008 - 12:35:37 PM

The Remand Home located at Kingtom is intended to house juveniles in conflict with the law who are on remand, awaiting the beginning or completion of their trials.   Once sentenced, juveniles are supposed to be transferred to the Approved School at Kissy, where they are expected to serve their sentences while undergoing educational and vocational trainings. However, these two institutions have come under serious criticisms, mainly for the lack of basic facilities for rehabilitation of juveniles which is their primary focus. Chapter 44 of the Laws of Sierra Leone 1960 makes provision for the establishment of the Remand Home and the Approved School so that juveniles will not be detained together with adults and to ensure that their justice system is suited to the particular needs of youth in conflict with the law.

At present, there are no inmates at the Approved School, which has been temporarily closed down despite recent renovations by the Justice Sector Development Programme {JSDP}, because it lacks basic furniture, including mattresses, and the equipment required for skills training. As a result, both remanded and sentenced juveniles are kept at the Remand Home, or held at Pademba Road Maximum Prison, where they are locked up together with their adult counterparts. This practice contravenes Chapter 44 of the laws of Sierra Leone 1960 which states that “a young person sentenced to imprisonment shall, so far as circumstances permit, not to be allowed to associate with adult prisoners”.{section 24[3]}

Despite the advocacy efforts of non-governmental organizations such as Defence for Children International-Sierra Leone, the Justice Sector Development Programme, and the Sierra Leone Court Monitoring Programme, aimed at securing the re-opening of the Approved School and improvements at the Remand Home, some of the problems are still in existence, as most juveniles are now being transferred from the Pademba Road Maximum Prison to the Remand Home. This has resulted in frequent episodes of unrest and successful escapes from the Home as those that are brought in often incite the others to rebel against the poor conditions under which they are detained. This awful situation of the facility is often reflected in the lack of sufficient food, lack of rehabilitative programmes for offenders, and lack of transportation or sometimes insufficient fuel to convey offenders to and from court. Also, the lack of adequate security contributes to the atmosphere of instability at the Home, placing both guards and juveniles at risk of violence as there is only one security officer at the Home.   The sense of frustration felt by the juveniles kept at the Home is heightened by lengthy delays in their trials as described in detail in a recent SLCMP article, “Delays in Juvenile Trials and its Impact on Juvenile Justice in Sierra Leone” by Hawa Kamara.

The Remand Home consists of five dormitories- three for boys and two for girls.   Only two of three male dormitories are still secure enough to house juveniles, whilst the third is insecure even though inmates are kept there because the two dormitories are not enough to house them all.   Each dormitory is supposed to house ten offenders.  On the day of our visit 22 April 2008, there were 26 inmates, 24 boys and 2 girls.   Workers have to improvise to make sure that inmates do not escape. Even though efforts have been made to repair the damage to the premises caused by the multiple escapes, inmates are now using the ceiling by removing ceiling  tiles from the toilets and climbing up an electrical pole located near the external wall of the compound   to escape, which leaves the Remand Home vulnerable to future escape attempts as well.   As a result, they are now deprived of their freedom to come out in the open air to play games and are locked up all day long, causing more frustration among the juveniles and defeating the rehabilitative aims of the Remand Home.

SLCMP representatives went to inspect the Remand Home early May and found out that only slight changes have occurred since a prior visit in August 2007. Virtually every security light - lights which are affixed to outside walls and corridors to make it easier for guards to detect escaping juveniles - has been broken and wrenched off the wall by inmates.   Most of the electrical wires have been cut and light bulbs smashed, meaning that many rooms have no artificial light. Escapes are facilitated by the chronic shortage of staff at the Remand Home.   The Home is currently run by one officer-in-charge, one duty officer, one matron and one store clerk. There is only one unpaid volunteer who serves as a cook.   This small group of four employees and one volunteer is expected to manage and guard the Remand Home twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.   In addition, they are compelled to use their own personal funds to purchase necessary items such as padlocks for doors and, occasionally, food for the juveniles. However, the metal bars over many windows which have been partially or completely pulled off, have been repaired.   The metal gates which separate the outdoor corridors from the main courtyard of the Remand Home, and are intended to serve as barriers to prevent juveniles from escaping have also been repaired.

The Remand Home staff works long hours for low wages.   The lack of security at the Remand Home also puts its staff at great risk. Although one police officer has been assigned to the Home, he is sometimes not on duty, and the armed OSD personnel are only assigned there at night.   In addition, the juveniles occasionally riot when the Remand Home runs out of sufficient food and this threatens the peace of the workers.   It is very likely that given the frequency of escapes, police and judicial officers dealing with juvenile cases will be increasingly unwilling to send remanded juveniles to the Remand Home, and will instead order them to be held at Pademba Road Prison. However when the officer in charge of the Home on one occasion requested the presiding Magistrate to send some inmates of the Home to Pademba Road Prison because of inadequate security, the Magistrate objected on the grounds of legality.  

The inability to house juveniles in the legally-mandated proper facilities is a significant setback for Sierra Leone’s juvenile justice system.  That the Approved School lacks simple repairs and sufficient furnishing, suggests that the Ministry of Social Welfare needs to become more involved in improving the conditions of juvenile detention.   While the school that is specifically constructed to house convicted offenders stands unused, juveniles are crowded into the already-overwhelmed barracks at Pademba Road. At present, 22 convicted offenders have been sent to Pademba Road Maximum Prison, and two to the Remand Home, to serve their sentences.

It is widely acknowledged that conditions at Pademba Road are dismal—as evidenced by radio reports of prisoner deaths due to disease, lack of sufficient food, and overcrowding.   UNIOSIL’s assessment of Sierra Leonean prisons, released in May 2007, confirms the poor quality of prison conditions across the country.   Holding juveniles at Pademba Road, or at any other adult detention facility, violates international principles on juvenile justice, including the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (the “Beijing Rules”), and the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty (the “JDL Rules”).

Detaining juveniles with adults is also detrimental to the justice system itself:   At Pademba Road, juveniles will inevitably interact with adult criminals, and are at a great risk of abuse and violence.   Instead of learning job skills or continuing their education, as they could at the Approved School, they spend their days hungry, ill, and surrounded by older criminal offenders—their only role models. Upon their release, they will re-enter society traumatized and hardened, having learned nothing that could help them find employment and become productive members of society.   Some of these juveniles will likely return to crime, beginning a “revolving door” cycle of arrest, imprisonment, release, and re-arrest.  

This is exactly the cycle that institutions like the Remand Home and the Approved School are designed to prevent, by providing the juveniles with useful activities and training that can enable them to either return to school or find employment upon the completion of their sentences. On the contrary, apart from the occasional visits of NGOs at the home, no form of rehabilitation process is on going. Inmates are always idle and could even steal from visitors. Recently, a social worker’s phone was stolen and another’s money was taken from her bag. People are now advised to hold on to their bags whenever they visit the home.

The Ministry of Social Welfare should ensure that the Remand Home receives basic facilities for rehabilitation, and that the Approved School is furnished and re-opened, as soon as possible.