Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad says de­spite the num­ber of cas­es be­fore the Chil­dren’s Court and the 1,050 chil­dren sus­pend­ed from schools in the first three months of the aca­d­e­m­ic year, the use of State of Emer­gency pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders for mi­nors may not be the best so­lu­tion to steer­ing youth away from de­viant and crim­i­nal be­hav­iour.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Seep­er­sad said if child vi­o­lence is re­port­ed­ly high, there should be few­er PDOs and au­thor­i­ties should work more on re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing those who are go­ing down the wrong path.

“Our youth jus­tice sys­tem has trans­formed it­self from one that in the past was ex­treme­ly ret­ribu­tive, was ex­treme­ly pun­ish­ment ori­en­tat­ed, to one that is now very, very restora­tive. So, you know, when you look at the op­er­a­tion of the Chil­dren’s Court, notwith­stand­ing, of course, that sev­er­al thou­sand cas­es have gone through the chil­dren’s courts since the in­cep­tion, when you look at the ap­proach that the chil­dren’s courts take, it’s re­al­ly, re­al­ly far more about re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion than about pun­ish­ing.”