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Clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist, Van­dana Siew Sankar-Ali, has warned that try­ing chil­dren as adults in a court of law can back­fire on the coun­try.

She was re­act­ing to the Sun­day Guardian’s front-page sto­ry yes­ter­day in which Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said it may be time for the na­tion to con­sid­er try­ing chil­dren as adults.

His state­ment came af­ter a 13-year-old boy was one of two ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with an at­tempt to smug­gle con­tra­band in­to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca last Fri­day. A num­ber of stu­dents from sec­ondary schools have al­so been ar­rest­ed for pos­ses­sion of cannabis.