Improving the Juvenile Justice System 2001–2005
Note: Pages in this section have been stored solely for archiving purposes. Information contained here refers to the 2001–2005 CPAP. Follow this link for current details about UNICEF programmes in Turkey.
Recent estimates are that more than 1 million children worldwide are deprived of their liberty by law enforcement officials.
UNICEF Factsheet on Children Deprived of Their Liberty and Juvenile Justice.
Background
Of almost 50,000 children who came into contact with the police in 1995, 50% were under six years old while 31% were between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. The Juvenile Judicial System in Turkey needs to be strengthened in order to meet the needs of children in conflict with the law more effectively: certain aspects of Turkish law need to be changed in order to comply with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the implementation of others needs to be improved.
A greater capacity and stronger infrastructure is required at all levels in order to cope with the growing number of children involved in or affected by crime. A review and revision of some aspects of legislation and of services for children in the judicial system is needed. Government initiatives in recent years have gone some way towards improving the situation such as the establishment of a specialised police force for children and the development of alternative services to better meet the needs of children involved in the juvenile judicial system.
The commitment to reform demonstrated by the Government is the first essential step in improving the Juvenile Judicial System, laying the ground for necessary legislative reform and for strengthening the scope and size of the infrastructure particularly on providing alternatives to the court system, such as out-of-court settlements. Alternative education, treatment programmes and specialised services will help rehabilitate children and reintegrate them into society. Training on children’s issues will build the capacity of staff in the Juvenile Judicial System.
The projects aims to improve the capacity of the juvenile justice system by:
- effectively meeting the needs of children in contact with the law, child victims and/or witnesses of abuse;
- effectively meeting the needs of Children in Need of Special Protection Measures (CINSPM);
- successfully rehabilitating and reintegrating these children into society.
The project will be achieve this by:
- revising national legislation in order to ensure compliance with the CRC and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW);
- developing a better understanding of the problems faced by CINSPM;
- improving national policies on CINSPM;
- contributing to the reintegration of CINSPM into society by building the capacity of national and local institutions, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations to respond to their needs;
- establishing new models of services or strengthening existing ones;
- improving procedures to deal with children in contact with the law;
- strengthening and improvement of the referral system for CINSPM along with improved networking to encourage appropriate research and the establishment of resource centres to serve as databanks.
It is expected that:
- national legislation on juvenile justice will be brought into compliance with the CRC;
- legal protection for CINSPM will be improved;
- numbers of CINSPM and those at risk of becoming CINSPM will be reduced;
- better coordination on child protection at all levels will be achieved.
Read more about children in contact with the law in Say Yes, Spring 2004.
Read the UNICEF Special Protections Commentary in the Progress of Nations, 1997. The UNICEF Factsheet on Children Deprived of Their Liberty and Juvenile Justice is available in pdf format. [PDF 823KB]
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