The residential placement of minors, juveniles and young offenders in Malta

Abstract

Malta has not had a juvenile detention centre for over twenty years, since the San Filippu Neri facility was closed down in the seventies. In 1980, the Industrial Schools and Houses of Correction Ordinance was repealed, thereby sealing a noncommittal on the part of the State, to provide such institutions. Consequently young offenders who come into contact with the juvenile justice system, and with penal policy in general sometimes find themselves detained at the Corradino Correctional Facility, either awaiting trial or as part of a Court sentence of detention. The Corradino Correctional Facility, which has been listed for a general overhaul, is intrinsically a facility for adults. In addition, no professional system of classification of prisoners exists. This means that not only are young people admitted to Corradino, but they are not even segregated accordingly. Basing this research project on Edwin F. Sutherland's Theory of Differential Association, that is on his premise that criminal behaviour is learnt, especially in association with delinquent others, the current placement system is self-defeating. Leaving the young perpetrators in the community could prove to be less harmful both to the young person, and to society at large, in the long term. This paper attempts to address the urgent needs of youthful offenders, the most important of which is their basic right to rehabilitation. It also attempts to divert a bulk of the attention given to the delinquency problem in Malta from incarceration on to other measures, custodial and non-custodial. Statistics available reveal that during the last five years, while one person under sixteen was actually sentenced to imprisonment, 69 others were kept for a time awaiting trial.