En 101 First Draft

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C a p i n p u y a n | 1

Aimee Lorraine C. Capinpuyan

Mr. Maximino Pulan Jr.

En 101 M02

10 Dec

Imprisonment as an Effective Means of Rehabilitating Children in Conflict with the

Law in the Philippines

I. Responsibility of the CICWL in a Criminal Situation

Generally, in the Philippines, children in conflict with the law, or CICWL, can be

classified according to certain characteristics. These are a history of family violence,

a formal education, maturity, and gender. According to a study conducted in 2004 by

Save the Children UK, majority of the CICWL in prison have been physically abused

by a relative or a parent. Majority of the children that were also included in the same

study have reached at least sixth grade, while 36% of the convicted children in Davao

and 38% of those in Metro Manila have been in high school. However, majority of

those in Cebu and in Metro Manila during the time of the offense have stopped

schooling after age fourteen. The study has found that in these prisons, only a few of

the children have had no formal education at all (5% and 1% in Davao and Metro

Manila, respectively). The reason for why these children are unable to finish their

studies, as presented in a survey done by the same organization amongst the Cebu

children, is that a lack of financial resources or influence from their peers.

The average age of CICWL in prison is fourteen years. Although majority are

over fourteen, and the average is affected by there being children coming in conflict




with the law as young as five or six years old. Gender-wise, all studies show that

more boys come into conflict with the law than girls. In prisons, there are more male

inmates than female.

The study raises the question of what causes these children to come into conflict

with the law in the first place. The answer is poverty. It has been found that poverty is

the basic cause for offending, mainly because most crimes committed in poverty are

committed for the sake of survival. The commission of such crimes is called survival

offending.

Domestic violence is another cause of children coming into conflict with the law.

Domestic violence results in children being incorporated into a life of violence at a

very young age, thereby pushing them to run away from home and live outside with

their ³barakadas´. On a larger scale, the social environment in which the child grew

up also greatly influences his or her tendency to offend. The social environment

referred to here is in the form of lack of parenting skills, early marriage and the

disintegration of the family system. The study also reports that both children and

adults saw pornography, peer pressure, lack of education, and lack of recreational

facilities as contributing factors.

Another factor that affects the future of these children is a history of family

violence. More than half (54%) of the twenty-eight CICWL being held in the

Community Scouts Center in Cebu say that they were abused by a family member.

And out of the twenty-one children included in the case studies, six clearly came from

violent, abusive homes. Out of these six, three ran away from home, and two say that

the improper attitudes of their parents are what pushed them to offend.




Because of all the factors listed above, it is difficult to classify children as

responsible or not responsible for their actions. However, when we speak of

classifying CICWL in the Philippines, no concrete method has been devised of telling

whether a child is fit or unfit to be sent to jail. The Constitution indicates only which

jail the child will be to be sent to. For example, a child with a sentence from one day

up to six months is sent to the municipal jail. A child sentenced up to six years is sent

to the city jail. And if the penalty exceeds six months but the crime was committed in

the municipality, the child is sent to the provincial jail. Sentences over three years

long are served in the centers managed by the Bureau of Corrections.

These conditions alone are insufficient means of telling whether a child

should even be sent to jail in the first place. However, Lars-Christer Hydén, author of

The Social Construction of Juvenile Delinquency, argues that children are incapable

of ³free moral judgment´ and are therefore only partially responsible for their actions

and can, in general, be excused from crimes. The actions of children are considered

impulsive; they do not know how to weigh their judgment against the social norms

(Frankfurt, 1988), and we can consider children as lacking the mental capacity to

evaluate behaviour in a way considered as mature in society (Kohlberg, 1984).

Presumably, they develop in their teen years the ability to evaluate their own actions

against general moral standards. However, there is some uncertainty as to whether

teenagers of ages fifteen to eighteen can be held fully responsible for a crime, because

it is during these times in which a person transitions from being a child with no

responsibility to being an adult who has to take responsibility (Matza, 1964). There is




an uncertainty as to whether teenagers act with full moral insight about their actions,

and this is one of the grey areas of the study.

Hydén cites some examples of social circumstances which will make a crime

pardonable, and these are growing up under socially or psychologically depriving

environments. In a Philippine context, environments such as these may be the streets

where homeless children live, or an abusive household. Here, the social and moral

rules are different, because the child finds him or herself in a position where he or she

is the one who must find food or defend his or herself.

In evaluating how much responsibility a child really holds when he or she

commits a crime, Hydén cites Feinberg as the source of a model called the

responsibility paradigm.

A criminal is defined by a paradigm that dictates who is responsible for the

actions and consequences of a liability. In legal terms, for a person to be a

criminal, he or she must have a connection to the crime that makes it very

clear that it was that person who committed it. But aside from this, it is

important to know the context in which the crime was committed. Only then

can we judge how responsible a person really is for an action. (Feinberg,

1965)

In summation, children in general cannot be considered criminals because the

actions that they commit are not entirely actions of their own making. A history of

family violence or a background in poverty might have led them into offending, and

aside from that, children lack the moral consciousness for us to charge them

completely responsible of their actions.




II. CICWL in Jail

There has been much debate abroad over whether the focus of the juvenile

justice system should be on rehabilitating CICWL or punishing them. While

information on that topic in the Philippines cannot be found as of the time being, the

distinction between punishment and rehabilitation can still be defined using the

principles discussed by Hydén.

When we speak of punishment, we say that they are usually given because of an

action already committed. It seeks to enforce discipline and structure on an individual

Treatment, on the other hand, is future-oriented. It focuses on future development,

and the production of well-integrated, contributing members of society. It looks on

past actions as important only when they are indicators of possible future actions that

may conflict with his or her development as a citizen. Hyden says of this, ³Treatment

is prospective, while punishment is retrospective. And if a punishment robs a person

of space and time, non-mandatory treatment offers him or her space and time in the

form of possibilities: the opportunity of a new life in terms of education, economic

support, housing, [and etcetera].´

In the Philippine context, majority of the children being sentenced to jail are

being punished and not rehabilitated. Evidence of this are the poor living conditions

in most Philippine jails. One of the major complaints of inmates in city, provincial, or

municipal jails is the crowdedness. The lack of cells in these jails can be attributed to

the national government failing to allot enough funds for the BJMP, or the Bureau of

Jail Management and Penology. Rural or provincial jails suffer the worst effects of




this. Samar Provincial Jail constructed a makeshift structure in the corner of the

courtyard to house excess inmates. The roofs of this building are made of plastic and

tarpaulin, offering little comfort during summers and rainy days. In Tacloban City

Jail, thirty-four children are being crammed into one cell. One of the kids even called

it ³a can of sardines´.

Another one of the problems within Philippine jails is that while most jails have

separate cells for the children and the adults, these cells are separated only by metal

grills, allowing the adults to interact with the children. This is not beneficial for the

child, as communicating with the adults increases the risk of the child being recruited

in gangs or socialized into the world of violence and crime. Increased interaction

between children and adult inmates also heightens the risk of the child getting abused.

Samar Provincial Jail¶s response to this is they assigned a jail guard whose main

function is to keep watch over the children. A social worker form the Regional

Rehabilitation Center for Youth in Tanawan says some jails put children in the same

cell as the adults because they were not recognized as children (they lacked birth

certificates and the like).

These two problems stated above result in there being no cells set aside for

female youths. One other reason for this is the fact that there are only few girls who

come in conflict with the law. It is an accepted practice in Tacloban City Jail to mix

the female children with the adult inmates, and in Tarangan Municipal Jail in Western

Samar to put all children in the same cells as the women. These practices are

commonly thought of as beneficial for the children, as female inmates are thought to




be caring and showing motherly concern for the youths. However, there are no

studies that support this.

Another problem within jail that is detrimental to the CICWL is the quality of the

food in prison. With each inmate having a food allowance of only thirty to thirty-five

pesos per day, and given that each inmate is served three square meals a day, the

quality, variety, and nutritive content of the food cannot be guaranteed. A social

worker from one of the jails included in the study reports that the food is haphazardly

prepared. The fare is usually dried fish, watery vegetables, and rice.

It is interesting to note that many of the children reported that they actually enjoy

the food being served to them in jail. They were contented with being served food on

a regular basis, much unlike when they were living outside the jail. This, however,

denotes the sad situation of these children who may not have had enough to eat prior

to their detention because they come from poor families.

There is also a lack of beddings inside the prisons. Some children, whose

families fail to provide them with blankets, sheets, and mats, are forced to sleep on

the bare floors or on boxes of cardboard. Lastly, there are issues with the sanitary

facilities and electricity. Sanitary facilities in the jail are poor ± most jails don¶t have

potable drinking water and there is a lack of running water. The jails experience

constant problems with the power supply. The lack of water and electricity, according

to Trinidad, Manzano, and Puzon, are because the BJMP cannot afford to pay for

these regularly.




All in all, these conditions are seen as harmful and not beneficial to the CICWL,

and therefore children will benefit greatly should these conditions be improved upon.

Trinidad, Manzano and Puzon have this to say:

The deplorable conditions [in these jails] are not beneficial to CICWL.

Instead of making their detention in jail a rehabilitative experience, their

stay only underscores the punitive nature of the jail system in the

Philippines. Because of the sub-human conditions in some of these jails

marked by the lack or unavailability of even the most basic of amenities

and provisions such as water, their stay becomes a long drawn punishment.

Not all experiences in jail, however, are a ³long drawn punishment.´ Not having

to worry about their next meal, some children see their experience in jail as a positive

one. They say that they appreciate the sense of order and discipline in their lives they

had not experienced in their homes. Some detention centers provide children with

guidance counselling through religious groups, enabling a richer spiritual formation

in the CICWL. Some children, despite the gangs and lawlessness in jails, find helpful

peers who help them cope and fill their need for friendship and affection, sometimes

acting as mentors or ³kuyas´. They give the CICWL a sense of direction by sharing

their own experiences.

III. Discourses Within the Prison System

There are three identifiable discourses within the prison system, as discussed

by Adler and Longhurst. These three are the rehabilitation discourse, control

discourse, and the normalisation discourse. The principles behind these discourses




were formulated from the prisons in Scotland. However, we will still be able to apply

them to the prison systems in the Philippines.

The first discourse, which most Philippine prisons employ, is the control

discourse. This ideology is all about conformity. It does not care about the positive

change that should be brought about in an individual, or the normalisation of the

prison; rather, it asserts that prisoners should conform to the standards of the prison in

order to maintain peace and order. This discourse is particularly concerned with the

protection of the prison staff. In the Philippines, most of the Philippine jails do not

actively attempt to bring about a positive change in the inmates. Rather, they maintain

that prisoners conform to the standards of prison. Because of this, it can be said that

most Philippine jails are employing the control discourse. This kind of insensitivity to

the inmates is one of the main concerns in the studies of Trinidad, Manzano, and

Puzon. Officers reportedly fail to protect children from gangs that initiate potential

members by forcing them to commit acts of violence, or by making the children the

victims of gangs themselves. Failure to obey the orders of the leader causes the child

to be beaten and abused. There are also reports of children being sexually abused by

the other inmates, or sometimes, fellow children.

The second discourse is the normalization discourse. Here, the focus is

diverted from the prison experience being a punitive one to the prison experience

being more ³casual´. The inmate is seen as a normal individual who happens to have

committed a crime for which he or she has to be sent to prison for. Characteristics of

this discourse are minimum security, allowed contact between the prisoner and his or

her family, and improved living conditions. In this study, only one jail has found to be




making use of this discourse, and that is Western Samar Municipal Jail. Of his stay in

this jail, Miguel, sixteen, has the following to say:

The jail isn¶t really a jail. I can move around freely and even go home

to visit my family or to take baths. The police let me out whenever I

feel like it. The police are kind to me. I am close to one of [them]. I

like him because he is like a µkuya¶ to me. Another policeman is also

okay because he makes me attend church services.

I can watch television until late at night and can wake up any time I

want. I usually sleep at the office of the police. I have my own

beddings supplied by my family... It is okay in the cell, I don¶t even

have to worry about mosquitoes because I am given mosquito coils to

use at night.

When I am bored, I play with the guard dogs. Sometimes, I play

basketball with my friends.

The food is okay. We usually have rice, vegetables, dried fish, and

even chicken. We normally eat the same food as the policemen.

Sometimes, the police ask me to do some tasks for them like cleaning

the yard of the headquarters. I am paid for this most of the time.

Miguel¶s account shows how Western Samar Municipal Jail makes use of the

normalisation discourse.

The last discourse is called the rehabilitation discourse and is also referred to

as the treatment model. It is the one that is concerned with improving the individual.

Its focus is the ³deviant´ individual¶s self. The dominant concerns in this discourse




are that of socializing the individual back into society through the provision of

training and treatment.

The focus on this discourse is on the individual who is deemed to be

psychologically disturbed, socially maladjusted or otherwise out of

step with the rest of society in some way. The nature and degree of the

deviance were to be ascertained by the new disciplines. The aim of the

prison as a state agency was to socialize the individual back into

society. Ultiamtely, advocates of rehabilitation believed that this

would lead to a reduction in crime and hence to the protection of the

society. (Adler and Longhurst, 1994)

The Philippines has its own rehabilitation centers called the RRCY (Regional

Rehabilitation Center for Youth). In these centers, children receive vocational training

where they are prepared by the staff to be reintegrated into the community when they

are released. A social worker from the Tanauan RCCY says some of her wards return

to the Center years after their release, saying they have found good jobs with the

skills they acquired from the Center¶s vocational training.

While CICWL would benefit greatly from rehabilitations such as these, the

few centers we have in the Philippines that employ this discourse are definitely not

enough to house all CICWL. Some possible reasons for that rehabilitation programs

must be of good quality in order to produce favourable results, which means that the

government has to spend more money to hire competent counsellors or staff trainers.

Adequate staffing and funding is also a problem here, as these might be in short

supply.




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