VOA: Juvenile crimes and the need for support in their reintegration

2024-03-10 20:20:00, Kronika CNA

In Albania, the involvement of minors and young people in criminal offenses is becoming an increasingly disturbing phenomenon. Almost every year, more than 800 young people and minors commit criminal offenses such as theft, drug distribution, driving without a driver's license, threats, injury and even murder. Due to their age, 251 of them are serving their sentence in the probation service.

Police announcements prove daily cases of minors and young people being involved in contact or conflict with the law, pushing them, most of the time, towards the world of crime. Thefts, drug trafficking and distribution, driving without a driver's license, threats, beatings and even the use of weapons, are mostly the criminal offenses that bring minors and young people to the doors of the police and courts.

Statistics show the involvement of more than 800 of them in criminal offenses every year. Psychologist Manjola Halimi says that, due to misorientation, most of these minors or young people come into conflict with the law.

"Often they are faced with inequality that is created and, from young people, perceived in various services, which they perceive can come immediately along with the benefits. But the need to understand and integrate age groups and their needs, especially in Albania, is a problem that needs to be addressed," she says.

According to official data, for the most part minors under 18 manage to avoid a prison sentence through the application by the prosecution and the courts of alternative measures, such as the probation service, which gives the perpetrators of criminal offenses the opportunity to reintegrate and rehabilitated more quickly with community life. But leaders of the probation service say that, in many cases, the difficult economic situation is an obstacle to their reintegration.

"The probation service under supervision at the national level has 251 minors. The city of Shkodra has about 20-21 minors in the probation service, of which 10 are in urgent economic and social needs. A black stain remains for our society, for all these children who want a different support and a different approach from all actors of institutions or non-governmental organizations operating in the territory of Albania", says Klevis Qose, from the Probation Service.

According to the prosecution body, the way of education and integration of minors who come from criminal offenses remains problematic. In Albania, the Juvenile Sentencing Institution operates in Kavaja, where a small number of minors, involved in criminal offenses, only 29 of them, currently reside.

According to the director of the Center for the Prevention of Juvenile and Youth Crimes, Klaudia Hasanllari, the created situation has brought out the need to establish a new institution, such as the Institute of Rehabilitation and Integration of Juveniles in Conflict with the Law.

"This becomes very difficult when there are no institutions that will supervise the implementation of the measures and, for this reason, the Ministry of Justice has started the procedures for the creation of this institute so that the institutions of justice have the guarantee for the implementation of educational precautions or procedures in terms of taking avoidance measures, etc.", she says.

In 2017, the Parliament of Albania adopted the Juvenile Criminal Justice Code, which aims to protect the rights of minors in cases where they are witnesses and/or victims of criminal offenses and to promote the reintegration of minors in conflict with the criminal law.

But the difficult economic situation of the majority of minors or young people who come into conflict with the law, as well as the lack of cooperation between institutions and rehabilitative capacities, have made its implementation difficult./ VOA