Seeds of Violence?

There are no specific causes for the criminal behavior of children, but there are risk factors that trigger their becoming in conflict with the law.

By DEEDEE S. ESPINA

When asked, this 14-year old boy knows why he is at the Manila Youth Reception Center (MYRC). “Inisnat ko yong hikaw nung balikbayan,” he says in a faint throaty voice. Not even knowing how to pronounce “snatch” properly, this boy whom you can mistake for an eight-year-old for his very small built, has been in the center for five months now. His case is on trial. In fact, he wishes for a new pair of shorts for his next hearing before a family court. Ms. Emerlina Aunario, the center’s officer-in-charge, says Republic Act 8369 established family courts in 2000.

     Theft constitutes half of the cases of minors housed in this center. Other cases range from petty violations of ordinances, such as rugby sniffing, to rape and holdup-robbery. The center had been home to a child who committed murder seven years earlier. The child was eventually released after the court considered that he has served his sentence with his length of his stay in the center.

     MYRC becomes home to minor perpetrators after cases are filed against them. “We have 184 children, aged 11 to 20,” discloses Ms. Aunario. Of this number, 13 are girls. A mid-morning visit to the center allows you to hear the noise coming from behind the walls—from a basketball game they play as a form of therapeutic activity.

     Over at the Child Protection Unit (CPU), 59 minor perpetrators went under their care in 2001. CPU, located at the grounds of the UP-PGH in Manila, is an undertaking of the Advisory Board Foundation. It provides medical and psychosocial services to sexually abused children as well as minor perpetrators who sexually abuse other children. The youngest perpetrator CPU has seen was a five-year-old boy, who was accused of raping another child, according to Dolores Rubia, one of CPU’s social workers.

     It’s hardly believable that a five-year-old boy is capable of rape, let alone define what constitutes rape. What is the psychological make-up of children who commit crimes, whether against another child or against an adult? As Miss Rubia puts it, “there are no specific causes for the behavior.”

No Specific Cause

     According to Dr. Norietta M. Calma-Balderrama, a child psychiatrist who serves as one of CPU’S resident psychiatrists, they have not established any pattern of reasons behind the commission of crimes by  children. “In a study we did of minor perpetrators in the last five years, we did not see any pattern in terms of psychopathology,” she says, “which means that not all of them would have a diagnosis of mental illness.” Dr. Balderrama adds that one cannot predict that a child will commit such crimes.

     While there are no specific causes for the criminal behavior of children, there are risk factors that trigger their becoming in conflict with the law. Dr. Balderrama briefly discusses these factors as occurring in the child’s developmental process. 

     “From age one day to six years, the child is in the process of forming attachments,” she explains, “and this is the stage when the child establishes role models.” She notes that the behavior that the child is likely to acquire depends on whom the child will model early on. The absence of a role model, whether the parent or a caregiver, therefore, does not give the child the chance to know whether a thing is good or bad to do. Constant parental absence is a risk, she says.

     She adds that there should be a consistent role model. Even changing yaya all the time is a risk factor, Dr. Balderrama explains, since the child is not able to form a lasting relationship with a role model. Therefore, trust is not built, she says.

     A child who is always scolded feels rejected. If there is a kind of physical abuse, the risk is compounded. Dr. Balderrama asserts: “If you have a parent who beats up his child, what do you expect later on? That kind of behavior that the child picks up from the parent will also manifest as a violent behavior. He then becomes aggressive and violent towards other people.” She says that a child who sees his parents hitting each other is a dangerous backdrop. “The child becomes violent or depressed,” she says. Even calling names is not a good thing to do to a child as it could lead to a feeling of rejection.

     In a survey among the minor perpetrators served by the CPU, Miss Rubia found out that the typical situation surrounding them include dysfunction in the family, poor economic condition, and crowded and noisy home environment. “Most of them live in the squatter areas,” she says. The survey negated one of her hypothesis though—that children who transfer from one place to another often are at risk of deviant behavior. “Most of them have lived in crowded and noisy neighborhoods for five to ten years.” But she notes most have also changed caregivers quite too often. “There is inconsistent care since the parents leave their children behind to go to work,” she adds.

     If you look at the background of these kids, they have parents who are alcoholic, or separated, says Dr. Balderrama. “They have terrible living conditions, almost unfit for humans. They have nobody to talk to. Most of them are neglected.”

     Those under the care of Ms. Aunario say they have gotten used to a life like theirs, one that is in conflict with the law. “Ganun na talaga,” she quotes the children as saying. She finds out later that parents of these children have also been admitted to the center. For the entire family or perhaps the entire neighborhood, this life is as normal as it can be. And most of these children have not received formal education, she adds.

Changing Jail Terms

     Children on trial and those convicted by family courts are lucky if they are committed to a center that has changed the approach of housing minor perpetrators. The jail approach may seem too harsh for these youngsters, notes Ms. Aunario.

     And so in their belief that these children are more victims than anything else and that they need help more than punishment, MYRC has changed even the jail terms, thereby creating an environment conducive to behavioral change. Mayor has been changed to leader or Kuya; selda has been changed to dorm.

     To let them feel they are important, they have house parents, male and female, who tend to their needs 24 hours a day. The center lets the children experience home life —eating descent meals, playing, learning in the classroom, receiving counseling, and even seeing a doctor. She shares one case where a child was to be released but did not want to leave the center as there was really nobody to go home to.

     What if a child is sent to a regular jail where they are mixed with adults? Or with hardened criminals? There aren’t enough of these friendly centers as there are only about a dozen juvenile centers around the country. The conditions in regular jails can be overpowering for a child and as such are hardly any help for his future.

     The government may be focused on the prevention of such juvenile crimes, but there is also an urgent need to focus on what kind of life awaits these children after detention. But prior to this, there is a need to identify which have more chances of making it.

     Dr. Balderrama laments that the system does not have screening programs to find out if there are organic problems in the child.  She hopes though that if not her, someone takes the lead in establishing this screening process in the country.

"If you have a parent who beats up his child, what do you expect later on? That kind of behavior that the child picks up from the parent will also manifest as a violent behavior." -- Dr. Balderrama

     “There are no specific programs,” says Dr. Balderrama, though she says that the law creating the family courts was a very big step towards helping these children, making the trials of their cases more child-friendly. But the children need to be given options when they are set free, she says.

     Reintegration into the society is as important as helping them renew while inside these centers or jails. “The lack of child psychiatrists is another issue,” she says. There are only 31 in the country, though pediatricians can help because they are the frontliners.

Economic Factor 

     As psychopathological factors are hardly the culprit, poverty seems to be the most likely route to creating juvenile criminals. When children are not given their basic needs, left in the streets to beg, and let to live on their own, due to poverty or family dysfunction, they are at a very great risk of becoming offenders.

     Ms. Juliet Villegas, head of the Manila social welfare department says that that children who have become offenders are hardly to be at fault. “Children follow a certain pattern or law in their families, and when the parents are such a fine example, they come out as such,” she says. 

     And when they indeed become offenders, undergo a form of rehabilitation; the re-integration problem is another matter to contend with. “Healing among children is a lot easier. What is difficult is the reconnection, the healing between the parents and the children, and among parents and other members of the environment and the community,” Ms. Villegas adds.

     There is no winning formula in battling against juvenile criminality, for now. Good parenting is where everyone can start, says Ms. Villegas. However, good parenting is as clear as mud, being devoid of hard and fast rules. Dr. Balderrama adds that children respond to different parenting styles, which makes it even more unpredictable. And even good parenting does not prevent a child from exercising his power of choice. Such a tall order for parents and adult members of society.

     Ms.Villegas simply says: “Take care of your children. Invest in children, not necessarily your own, while you can. Capture them in the very moment that you have them.  Reminisce. Try to feel how children feel. Ask yourself what would make you happy if you were a child.”

     In the meantime, the 14-year-old boy who awaits the hearing of his “snatching” case is preparing for a chess tournament at MYRC, his home for now. His passage from a young offender to a responsible individual, if ever, clearly rests on how adults—parents, caregivers, social workers, lawyers, judges, police officers, doctors, barangay officials and community workers—respond to his needs because on many counts, he is really more a victim than a criminal.