Culturally, Jamaicans have long held their own colloquial remedies for “bad bruck pickney”. These are children that the adults around them seem to have exhausted all the seemingly effective behavior modification techniques available to them.

Some well-known strategies: to beat it out the child, prayers, exorcisms, stern ‘talking to” or to put the children “under manners”. Often there are some children who seemingly escape the intended behaviour moulding from these punishment, the Jamaican law describes this as an  uncontrollable child”.

Legally, the concept of the ‘uncontrollable child’ stems from Section 24 of the Child Care and Protection Act (2004), which empowers the parent or guardian of a child to bring that child before a juvenile court where the said parent or guardian can prove that they are ‘unable to control the child’.