Crime and Juvenile Delinquency

“Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan.” This was one of the undying words that Dr. Jose
Rizal who foretold that the young generation is the key to the nation’s progress and
development.

Does this stand still up to this age when juvenile delinquency has ever been more
alarming in the Philippines?

Juvenile delinquency has been recently brought again to spotlight when it was reported
in national news about the proposal of lowering the minimum age for criminal liability of a child
from 15 years to nine years of age.

A House bill was filed by Davao del Sur Rep. Mercedes Cagas, proposing to lower the
minimum age for criminal liability of a child from 15 years to nine years of age citing that the
present minimum age of criminal liability of a child of 15 years is not in accord with today’s
realities. She further lamented that criminal syndicates use minors as implements and shields to
perpetuate crimes..their innocence being corrupted at such an early age. (Retrieved from
http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2016/01/14/criminal-liability-juvenile-delinquent-minors-
youth-law-offenders-house-bill-proposed.html)

After months of deliberation in the Congress, the House subcommittee on correctional

reforms is set to drop the said bill into lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility.
Instead, the panel is expected to approve a measure that will enhance the provisions under the
Juvenile Justice Act of 2006, which currently sets the minimum age of criminal responsibility at
15 years old. (Retrieved from http://www.rappler.com/nation/170574-house-subpanel-ditch-
lowering-minimum-age-criminal-responsibility)
What is Juvenile Delinquency?

Juvenile Delinquents: These children put up a face that brings fear and a sense of
defiance. In return, society denounces them with intense aversion, forgetting that they are
children who are just in need of greater guidance.
Formally, a Child in Conflict with the Law (CICL) is a person who at the time of the commission
of the offense is below eighteen years old but not less than 15 years and one day old.

According to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), there are
more than 2,600 juvenile delinquency cases reported in 2009. A year later, the number reduced
to 1,200. However, DSWD claims that there are still many unreported cases in the country.

Records of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) show that of
the thousands, 9,390 are male and only 704 are female. Most came from the Visayas,
Southern Tagalog and Ilocos regions.

In the National Capital Region, there are about 1,130 youth offenses documented. Of
these, 488 are crimes against property and 263 are crimes against person. Drug-related cases
number 234.

The increasing number of delinquent youth and youth offenders, admits DSWD, has
been a serious concern of the government since the late 1980s. Their population doubled,
for example, from 3,814 to 6,778 from 1987 to 1989. Since then, the number has been
constantly and aggressively increasing, said Nelita Culong, OIC of the youth offenders
division, DSWD-NCR.

“In my two decades (as a social worker),” Culong said in an interview, “the number of
youth offenders has never gone down…and the nature of crimes are becoming more and
more serious…”
 A DSWD primer on child welfare services elaborates that “youth offenders are victims
of circumstances beyond their control hence they should be treated as individuals with
problems who need help and not as criminals.”

Filipino youth offenders, says DSWD, should be understood in the context of the
Filipino family in crisis. But then, the family as the basic unit of social production, should be
further viewed as a miniature of the larger Filipino society that is in crisis.

Following the United Nations definition (that persons under 18 years old are
considered children unless a state recognizes otherwise), the independent research group
IBON Foundation reports that there are 34.7 million children in the country out of the total
population of 75.5 million as of last year.

The National Statistics Office (NSO) reports that one out of every five Filipino children
had no early education. Only 15% of children aged 3 to 5 years old are attending some early
childhood program in pre-school, nursery and daycare centers.

On basic education (elementary and high school), only 77% (17.3 million) of the 22.5-
million school-aged children (5 to 17 years old) were reportedly enrolled in school year 1999-
2000. This means that about five million Filipino children failed to go to school at that time.

As of the last school year, the rate of completion of primary education is only 68
percent. This means that for every 100 students who enter Grade 1, only 68 are able to finish
grade 6. The rates in secondary education are much lower; participation is only 65% while
completion rate is 47%.

In its latest survey, the NSO documented that around 800,000 minors aged 10 to 14
years old are part of the country’s labor force. Child laborers (five to 17 years old) reportedly
number around 3.7 million.
 Five years ago, the number of young workers was pegged at 3.6 million. According to
IBON Foundation, one in every 10 of these children engaged in heavy physical work. About
1.3 million child workers were out of school at that time.

Quoting the Bureau of Women and Young Workers, IBON says that “the economic
recession…has pushed children to skip their studies and help their families augment their
income. Children started competing with the adults in non-skilled jobs. And because they are
willing to support their families and are ignorant of their rights, management prefers them.”

The fact that a large number of the crimes committed by juvenile offenders were
crimes against property – usually theft and robbery – already indicates the economic
difficulties that push them into criminal activities. Poverty, together with dysfunctional
family relationships and negative peer influence, is a major factor that pushes the youth
toward lawlessness.

Causes and Effects of Juvenile Delinquency

The problems of street children and juvenile delinquents are much related social
problems. To survive in the street you almost have to become delinquent. Exposed to criminal
elements these children are vulnerable to prostitution, drug addiction and pushing and
commission of crimes. Most street children have become juvenile delinquents either out of
necessity (because they are poor) or through force (because of the syndicates). Young people in
the streets are also criminalized and stigmatized for no obvious crime committed. So many
times the streets were cleaned up at the start of the tourist season and as a consequence many
street children were jailed because of vagrancy laws.

Aurora Flores of the Philippines Mental Health Association in Dumaguete believes that
youth offenders have mental health issues and reiterates that such is not just the absence of
mental illness.
 The concept of right and wrong among youth offenders is vague or erroneous; leading
to their low self-control. In the long run, their values become distorted, allowing them to
commit crimes without feeling guilty.

Brenda Vigo, Executive Director of the Council for the Welfare of Children, says that
these children are victims of dysfunctional families, communities and poverty. That is why they
should not be treated as criminals and be allowed to undergo the Criminal Justice System.

In response to the House Bill No. 6052, titled “An Act Strengthening the Juvenile Justice
System in the Philippines,” referring to “youthful offenders” and “children in conflict with the
law,” where it seeks to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 12 years of age,
provided that criminal responsibility attaches only when the minor “acted with discernment.”,
the Psychological Association of the Philippines (PAP) are against this amendment and take the
stand that the minimum age of criminal responsibility should NOT be lowered from 15 to 12
years old. And instead, a call for the strengthening of the juvenile justice system through the
strict implementation of existing laws that prosecute adults who coerce children to engage in
criminal behavior and protect and rehabilitate children in conflict with the law (CICL) through
restorative means.

Scientific research on adolescent development and juvenile delinquency provide

evidence that children and adolescents differ significantly from adults in decision-making,
propensity to engage in risky behavior, impulse control, identity development, and overall
maturity. The developmental immaturity of juveniles mitigates their criminal culpability.
Although they may be able to discern right from wrong action, it is their capability to act in
ways consistent with that knowledge that is compromised by several factors at this stage:

1. Deficiencies in Decision-making Capacity

• The adolescent brain is still under development. Significant changes in brain anatomy and
activity are still taking place in the (prefrontal) regions that govern impulse control, decision-
making, long-term planning, emotion regulation, and evaluation of risks and rewards. These
abilities, which are involved in criminal behavior, do not fully form until young adulthood,
making early and middle adolescents (ages 12-16) especially vulnerable to risky and reckless
behavior.
• The adolescent is psychosocially immature compared to adults. Because of still-developing
cognitive abilities and limited life experiences, adolescents are less able and less likely than
adults to consider the longer-term consequences of their actions.
• Adolescents differ from adults in their assessment of and attitude towards risk. Compared to
adults, adolescents place relatively less weight on risk, and give more weight to rewards. They
also have different goals and values than adults. These may result in youth giving more
importance to, for example, peer approval than safe behavior.

2. Heightened Vulnerability to Coercive Circumstances

• As minors, young people lack the freedom that adults have to assert their own decisions and
extricate themselves from criminogenic settings. There is local evidence that children are often
used and abused by adults to engage in criminal acts. Youth are powerless in such
circumstances because they fear retribution, do not have or are not aware of alternative
actions, or look up to or are emotionally attached to the criminal proponents.
• Adolescents are more susceptible to peer influence than are adults. Because of the desire for
approval and belonging at this stage, adolescents’ choices reflect what they believe will merit
the approval of their peers. Peers and adults serve as models for behavior that adolescents
believe will help them achieve their goals. The fact that juvenile crimes tend to take place in
groups or gangs points to the significant role of peer influence and pressure.

3. The Disadvantaged Environment and Profile of the Filipino Child in Conflict with the Law
(CICL)

• The typical CICL is poor, lacking in education, a victim of parental neglect and/or abuse, and
lives in a criminogenic environment. These clearly place the young person at a disadvantage,
making deficiencies in decision-making and vulnerability to coercion all the more pronounced.
To place such a young person, already victimized, into the hands of the criminal justice system
further curtails his or her future prospects, and pushes them further towards a negative life
trajectory.

The aforementioned characteristics of youth indicate that they are less capable than adults—
even at age 15, but most certainly at age 12—to behave in accordance with what they may
discern or know to be right versus wrong action. Although transitory, these developmental
limitations are not under the volitional control of the young person.

Moreover, adolescence is still a time of self and identity development, and antisocial behaviors
do not reflect “criminal identity” at this stage. Research indicates that most youth abandon
antisocial behavior at the time that they exit adolescence, and that only a minority persists in
criminal behavior as a function of pervasive neurological and environmental risk factors. In fact,
exposure to the criminal justice system, where the child will be labeled a criminal and where he
or she is exposed to criminal models, will more likely establish the “criminal identity” of the
young person. Studies have shown that encounters with the adult justice system results in
greater subsequent crime, including violent crime, for the juvenile.

The PAP reiterates its position against the lowering of the minimum age of criminal
responsibility from 15 to 12 years old, urging the government and relevant stakeholders to
implement restorative justice and appropriate interventions for CICL. CICL should experience
sanctions in community and family settings whenever possible, especially for first and
nonviolent offenses. They should be excluded from the adult criminal system and given full
opportunities to develop into responsible adults who can make meaningful contributions to
society.
Solution

Rehabilitative services for youth offenders, since the 1960s, have been the principal
solution of the Philippine government, past and present, to the persistent social problem of
juvenile delinquency.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) maintains 10 regional

rehabilitation centers throughout the country; biggest among these are the National Training
School for Boys (NTSB) in Rizal province and the Marillac Hills for girls in Alabang, Metro
Manila. There are also other youth centers run by various local government units, church-
based institutions and non-government organizations.

Several advocacy groups as well as some psychologists and parents are not convinced
that NTSB, Marillac Hills and government rehabilitative services could really serve their
reformatory purposes.

These facilities lack personnel and social workers for the growing number of youth
offenders. At Marillac, for example, there are only 25 full time social workers for its average
500 clients; at the NTSB, there are only five social workers for its average 300 clients.

Although the NTSB has its share of “success stories,” DSWD admits that these are very
few. Some of its discharged clients have since been jailed repeatedly for new crimes.

While the DSWD is supposed to provide a post-care service, Gorospe of NTSB admits
that it does not have the resources, mechanism and system for out-of-center guidance. Thus,
most of its discharged patients are no longer monitored and supervised.

Other children NGOs criticize that the country’s juvenile justice system only intensifies
the social ties that bind children to misery and criminality.
 Albert Schweitzer Association, an Australian NGO for children’s rights and welfare
based in the Philippines, described the government rehabilitative efforts as “ineffective.” So
does the feminist NGO, the ISIS International – Manila.

Schweitzer’s social worker Agnes M. Cabauatan explained their group’s analysis that
poverty is the condition that breeds “bad boys and girls.” “To bring them (youth offenders)
to a center, feed them or educate them for a month to a year then discharge them back to
the condition of poverty is a vicious cycle of crime and poverty,” she said.

Ma. Victoria C. Belleza of ISIS strongly suggested that government efforts should first
address the root of the social problem of juvenile delinquency, which is poverty. She
elaborated that the government should make sure that the basic needs of the Filipino family
are addressed by the government’s social services.

Meanwhile, there are a number of laws in the country that supposedly protect and
promote the interests of children. One of them is Republic Act No. 7610.

Known as “An Act Providing for Stronger Deterrence and Special Protection against
Child Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination,” this law provides for a more comprehensive
mechanism for child protection. But as with other laws that look good on paper, its
implementation remains a big problem.

Many rights of the youth were not adequately protected by the State, although the Philippines
had signed all the International Treaties concerning children’s rights including:

 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which had been ratified in the Philippines on
July 1990 and become effective on September 2 1990
 Beijing Rules
 The Riyadh Guidelines
 The United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty.
The following were some examples of rights infringed by the State of the Philippines:

 The criminal justice system provides inadequate rehabilitation and mostly punishes
criminal behaviour of youth. However the international treaties, for which the
Philippines was a signatory, put emphasis on the fact that children should not be
detained in jails and in exceptional cases, if they are detained, then only for a very
short time. Because of lack of funds there are still not enough programs for education,
vocational training and rehabilitation centres.

 Young offenders, many of them first offenders were mixed with professional,
“hardened criminals’, thereby turning jails and prisons into schools of criminality. In
Camp Sampaguita only 23.53% were detained in separate cells for minors (3). This non-
segregation can be one reason why the numbers of street children and crimes were
rising.

 Inadequate health care (often totally absent) and subhuman conditions in the jails and
prisons condemned many a young inmate to an early death or to inflict irreparable
harm to their physical and mental health (4).

 While the State as Parents Patriae was expected to offer and to give special care to its
young offenders, it instead negligently allowed a number of young people to enter the
gates of jails and prisons with the least amount of legal protection during the litigation
process. There were no juvenile courts, lawyers, psychologists, probation officers who
were specialized in dealing with the youth.

 Children in conflict with the law were serving stiff sentences, doing time over and
above their sentence, awaiting action on their appeal for too long a time with no hope
of being attended to soon. Often they were unable to avail themselves of the benefits
of pardon or parole due to lack of knowledge about these options.
  The resolution of cases in the courts was extremely slow and often unfinished. For
example, for every 100 criminal proceedings 36 were resolved and 64 remained
pending. As most young detainees had no money to obtain bail this contributed to
overcrowding in the prisons. Another contributing factor to the congestion of jails and
detention centres was the lack of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court as it had
been abolished which increased the backlog of untried cases.

 A danger at that time was also the reintroduction of the death penalty. Some of the
young inmates could get this sentence if they had reached the adult age when on trial
(5).

Juvenile justice

For Sen. Robert Barbers, however, the best solution to the present critical problem of
juvenile delinquency is the iron hand. Barbers’ Senate Bill 892 proposes to lower the age
limit of convicts who could be sentenced and thrown into the death row.

Proposals such as these are opposite to the view that young offenders still have a
chance of growing up responsible and law-abiding adults if properly educated and reformed.
Called restorative justice for the juvenile, this concept still advocates punishment for juvenile
offenders but ensures that the punishment fits the crime.

There is no question that the country’s penal system is not fully equipped to taken in
adult offenders much less the young ones. A child-friendly justice system – complete with
policemen trained on the proper handling of youth offenders and a national office that will
establish the national standard for juvenile justice, including recruitment of jail guards,
establishment of youth centers and appointment of competent family court judges –
remains a very, very distant dream.
 And in the end, because juvenile delinquency is both a reflection and direct effect of
the crisis besieging the family, it is the economic and political empowerment of the Filipino
family that will decisively address the problem.

References:

http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2016/01/14/criminal-liability-juvenile-delinquent-minors-
youth-law-offenders-house-bill-proposed.html

http://www.rappler.com/nation/170574-house-subpanel-ditch-lowering-minimum-age-
criminal-responsibility

http://news.abs-cbn.com/current-affairs-programs/11/21/11/krusada-juvenile-delinquency

http://attylaserna.blogspot.com/2010/05/juvenile-justice-in-philippines.html

https://psa.gov.ph/sites/default/files/2013%20PY_%20Defense%20Crime%20and%20Delinque
ncy.pdf

https://hronlineph.com/2012/11/10/from-the-web-position-paper-of-the-psychological-
association-of-the-philippines-on-the-amendment-to-the-juvenile-justice-and-welfare-act/

http://www.bulatlat.com/archive1/036yo.html