Summary
This research is based on the experiences of the authors in the performance of their work with minors who study in behavioral schools. Its purpose is to present the main definitions and elements of care for minors that are found in them, as well as to determine the causes and conditions that cause the permanence of minors in this school and if the treatment received once they graduate influences the deterioration of their behavior.
Equally valuing the importance of knowledge of the laws in charge of regulating and verifying compliance with the rules established for the permanence and treatment of minors who are in the school of conduct.
The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba establishes that the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic is the organ of the State to which corresponds, as fundamental objectives, the control and preservation of legality, based on the monitoring of strict compliance with the Constitution, laws and other legal provisions, by State agencies, economic and social entities and by citizens and the promotion and exercise of public criminal action on behalf of the State.
LAW No. 83 OF THE GENERAL ATTORNEY'S OFFICE OF THE REPUBLIC in 1997, which dedicates its chapter number III, article 24 to the sphere of Protection of Citizen Rights, dedicating chapter IV, article 25 only to the protection of minors by the great importance that childhood has in the life of the human being, because due to its lack of physical and mental maturity, it requires special care and due legal protection, both before and after birth.
In compliance with the functions related to the control and preservation of Legality in the care of minors ruled and resolved by the Councils of Attention to Minors of the MINED and MININT, which are in the school of conduct, it allows to verify compliance with the rules established for the permanence and treatment of minors.
In this sense, we decided to carry out an investigation with the following Problem:
What are the main determinants that affect the permanence of minors in behavior school and treatment once they graduate?
General objective
Determine the causes and conditions that lead to the permanence of minors in behavior school and if the treatment received once they graduate influences the deterioration of their behavior.
Methods:
- Theoretical-legal: it will be used from the beginning to the end of the investigation for the interpretation and conceptualization of certain legal categories. Exegetical-analytical: it is used to verify the correspondence that exists between the legal norm that is analyzed and the reality of the phenomenon. Historical analysis: Through it, the institutions of law that appear collected in the research are analyzed, studying their evolution.
Techniques:
- Observation: it allows to have a direct perception of the characteristics and outstanding aspects of the object of study. Document review: it makes it possible to make valid and reliable inferences from the data of the phenomenon under investigation. Interview with minor graduates and their legal representatives.
Preventive treatment regarding minors and their comprehensive care and training has been imposed since 1879 when the Spanish Code was extended to Cuba, which regulates the different aspects of juvenile offenders, where they are conceived as subjects of criminal law, the criminal age was considered from 9 years and the imputability up to 9 years and the minor declared responsible was punished in accordance with the current code of that time.
Later, the Buen Pastor asylum was founded to confine children from 9 to 11 years old, then in 1900, through a military order, correctional schools were created and its regulations provided that children over 14 years old considered dangerous were sent to the courts and sent to prisons up to 18 years of age.
In July 1900, the absolute responsibility was extended to 10 years, these provisions being those that were in force until the enactment of the Code of Social Defense in 1938. This code introduced the Institution of the State of Danger in a new way and provided that the minors under 12 years of age who committed a crime were prosecuted by the special juvenile jurisdiction. In 1938 a Child Guidance Center was created by Law on June 23, where the child was conceived from two forms: endangered and dangerous.
Thus, the Fundamental Law of the Republic of October 7, 1959, resumed the provisions of the 1940 constitution, regarding the creation of courts for minors, the Ministry of Social Welfare assumed among its main functions those of preventing juvenile delinquency. Then a Department of Prevention and Social Security was created, which was dedicated to the preventive activity of juvenile offenders and from 1964 the minors began to be judged by a special court of the then Havana audience and in 1966 they were created the first Center for the Evaluation, Analysis and Orientation of Minors.
Our Magna Carta stipulates in article 40: Children and youth enjoy particular protection from the State and society. The family, the school, the state bodies and the mass and social organizations have the duty to pay special attention to the integral formation of children and youth.
Likewise, the Family Code under the title of parental-filial guardianship relations concerning the preservation and care of the minor by his parents and the obligation of these to direct them to a good education and consequently with this, the legislator collected in article 315 of the Penal Code, under the name of Other Acts Contrary to the Normal Development of the Minor, the sanction for parents who incur in the breach of the rights and duties that are imposed on them and even in the general part in article 38 is considered as one of accessory sanctions, deprivation or suspension of parental rights and guardianship.
At the international level, many have been the documents adopted by the United Nations for prevention, among them we have the Riyadh Guidelines, which were approved at the Eighth Congress, held in Havana in 1990, where reference was made to the preventive role of the family, school and the community in the process of socialization, another document to consider are the Ten priorities for work with youth and the International Convention on the Rights of the Child which has 54 articles, this last document was opened to the signed on January 6, 1990 and on that date 61 countries were signatories and it entered into force on September 2, 1990. Our country signed it,on January 26, 1990 and the essential theses that state it are contained in all these documents where the main interest is to safeguard the well-being of young people.
One cannot fail to mention the Code of Childhood and Youth of 1978, approved by the National Assembly of People's Power on June 28, 1978, which regulates the duties and rights of young people and of the people who have to do with your comprehensive training.
Thus, in 1982 a strategy was created in Cuba to extract the minor from the criminal justice system, which happened through the enactment of Decree Law 64 (82. Through which a system for the care of people under 16 years of age who present behavioral disorders, antisocial manifestations or who become significant rates of deviation or participate in acts that the law classifies as crimes (article 1 of the Decree Law).
The transgressions of the minors originate, according to the teacher Margarita Viera Hernández, as defects of the family, school and social education in the path of the development of their personal formation, both in adolescents and in young people.
In this sense, the alleged teacher in one of her studies stated that the young man between 16 and 20 years of age is still in the stage of looking for models of behavior appropriate to his environment. Imitation languishes as one advances towards the stage of mature youth and the higher motives in the adolescent are consolidated, but sometimes the models that the young person has around him do not possess the qualities that are required to form a correct young person according to to social canons, and educational deficiencies, fail to make up for the failures or deficiencies coming from the family nucleus, or the strength of the student or work group is not adequately used as a reshaper of misadjusted behaviors.
It is at these ages that young offenders graduate from behavioral schools, an age at which the young person has not yet solidified his personality before society and tends to imitate the patterns of those closest to him, the family.. From it he receives the main influences and through custom, habits and traditions he acquires the principles that will shape his actions, which is why the fundamental link for the reintegration of the minor is the family and the adequate education that it can provide.
But what are the fundamental problems that the family of juvenile offenders of conduct schools currently have?
The living conditions of the juvenile offenders who are subject to measures are the following:
- Dysfunctional homes Inadequate functioning at home Homes with sanctioned offenders Economically insecure homes Low educational level of the main members of the family unit Single-parent home Conflict before the courts promoted by one of the parents (essentially the mother) before the courts to demand the reestablishment of the obligation to give food Easy lifestyle Divorce of parents with children Lack of affective attention.
Therefore, if the influence of the adult is a reflection of their social conditions, that is, of the macro environment, and in turn constantly intervenes in the development of the young person, it is worth questioning how the correct formation of the young person and consequently his reintegration in the society and also assess the social impact of the commission of a criminal act by a minor.
One of the biggest problems is the difficulties faced by organizations that have to enforce compliance with the imposed measures. Likewise, the work of the school must attract all young people to participate in healthy recreation, sporting events, where it forces parents to participate and thus promote the role of the school as an essential pillar of the prevention of minors with conduct disorders.
Another important responsibility in committing crime on young people is the abandonment of cultural sources. The consequence of a precarious family discipline causes the young person to be absent for a long time from the systematic training and instruction activity that the school offers them. When young people fall behind in the classroom and school interest is lost, absenteeism is fostered and with it the withdrawal from the spheres of positive influence.
Decree Law 64 of the year 82, in the general provisions, article 1 establishes… "that the system will have as its objective the reorientation and re-education of these minors and will be jointly governed by the Ministries of Education and the Interior."
It also provides in article 20 the reorientation or re-education measures to be applied, among which are internment or compulsory attendance in conduct schools governed by the Ministry of Education or internment in the re-education center of the Ministry of the Interior, compulsory internment in a health care establishment of the network of centers under the leadership of the Ministry of Public Health, Obligation of Outpatient Medical Treatment, vigilance of care by the Ministry of MININT, reinforced surveillance of parents, guardians or those who are in charge of the minor, individualized attention from the school of the National Education System, aimed at correcting behavior without the need for internment in specialized schools, placement of the minor as a trade apprentice, in a labor unit,previous the corresponding coordination, including with the base union organization, and in accordance with the established in the current labor legislation and attention by the social workers of the Federation of Cuban Women.
The intention of our research is to enter the study of the measure of confinement or compulsory attendance to a behavioral school. Regarding this, article 23 of the aforementioned decree states that the measures to be applied to minors must correspond to their background, the result of their evaluation, the characteristics of their personality, their family and social environment, the nature, causes and circumstances of the conduct maintained and the actions committed.
Seen from this point of view, the minor graduates should be inserted into the national education system at the level that corresponds to them according to the age of graduation or trade school, or to be offered a job proposal that adjusts to their technical possibilities.
Timid efforts have been made, according to the author Margarita Viera Hernández, in the majority of the sanctioning system for young people and children when they are evaluated as necessary problems of sociological dysfunction of the system and the need to introduce a certain participation of the community, which was demonstrated in the present investigation.
The position of such a distinguished author that we put into consideration in this work, where it is possible to question: what role does the community play with regard to social reintegration, what do the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution do, what work is done with the family to change the micro-medium to where the minor has to return when they leave school. Consequently, the measure being analyzed constitutes a punishment for the minor offender, but will it be able to eradicate the causes and conditions that led to the misconduct of the minor?
If an extensive evaluation is carried out, the conclusion will not wait, the measure is not effective.
Studies carried out in the 1980s indicate that Cuba had an optimistic future regarding juvenile delinquency, pointing out that it was a phenomenon that tended to disappear. However, at the beginning of the XXI century it has been a dream that we have not been able to achieve since the number of young people who exhibit an unadjusted behavior reaches significant or non-negligible portions.
Young people tend to take into account the anti-values that are reflected in part of Cuban society, there is no adequate assessment of their potential and there is no positive influence by the student community.
On the other hand, the national education system, due to certain circumstances, has incurred changes that result in consequences such as the loss of respect for educators, since the presence of a teacher, usually very young, is seen to whom Parents do not recognize their work in front of the students and this situation causes a lack of control in the discipline, which is also coupled with the fact that nowadays after school hours parents impose another schedule to review the knowledge acquired, for What the minor loses the free time that is needed for the game and begins to see the homework as punishment and therefore the school loses its role in prevention.
These considerations coupled with the current reality where young people stopped fearing the courts because they know in advance that they do not respond criminally or that they will receive benevolent treatment from the judges in the event that they are between the ages of 16 and 20.. Consequently, the criminal record of the young man is growing and the dangerousness in the execution of crimes increases.
There are minors with deformed behavior and at the time of applying the internment measure it was late since the measures did not modify the disorders they presented at all, which shows that there was delinquency at the time of evaluating these minors so the school and the community, that is, the micro-social environment where they developed decisively determined them.
From what has been analyzed to date, it is necessary to modify the analyzed Decree Law, since it is evident that it does not adjust to the existing reality. Its content is not aimed at eradicating the causes and conditions that first generated the conduct disorder in the minor or young graduate, and focuses on proposing tasks once the diagnosis has been made.
- The decentralization that indisputably causes entrusting this task to two bodies with different functions. Not conceiving an independent and impartial body, whose function is exclusively this. The Council itself that imposes a measure is empowered to revoke it, even when it is vitiated by the reasons that gave rise to it Inadequate adaptation to international instruments, specifically the Convention on the Rights of the Child, since the Convention imposes, in a certain way, the creation of an administrative entity that is in charge of ensuring effective compliance of the rights of the child, as one more guarantee to avoid their being violated.
Conclusions
- They are the ages of 16 to 18 years, it is precisely in which the young offenders graduate from the behavioral schools, ages in which the young person has not yet solidified his personality before society and tends to imitate the patterns of the people who are closest has, the family. It receives the main influences and through custom, habits and traditions, it acquires the principles that will shape its actions, which is why the fundamental link for the child's reintegration is the family and the adequate education that it can provide. The greatest problems are given in the difficulties of organizations that have to demand compliance with the imposed measures. Likewise, the work of the school should attract all young people to participate in healthy recreation, sporting events,where it obliges parents to participate and thus promote the role of the school as an essential pillar of the prevention of minors to contrast us with behavior. ex officio, or that they be offered a job proposal that fits their technical possibilities. With this work I show that there is no monitoring by community factors, to prevent minors from becoming juvenile offenders.or that they be offered a job proposal that fits their technical possibilities. With this work I show that there is no monitoring by community factors, to prevent minors from becoming juvenile offenders.or that they be offered a job proposal that fits their technical possibilities. With this work I show that there is no monitoring by community factors, to prevent minors from becoming juvenile offenders.
Final thoughts
- That the factors of the community and the school work together in the determination and solution of the causes and predisposing conditions of conduct disorders that contribute to the fact that minors who graduated from behavioral school do not modify their behavior. Attention to Minors of the Ministries of Education and the Interior work for the sake of the early detection of possible disorders, to increase the quality of the diagnosis, their treatment and even their elimination Modify the analyzed Decree Law, since it is evident that adjusts to existing reality. Its content is not aimed at eradicating the causes and conditions that generated the conduct disorder in the minor or young graduate in the first place, and focuses on proposing tasks once the diagnosis has been made.
Bibliography
- AUDIVERT COELLO, PEN GUERRERO. Project for the dissemination of the rights of the child: Intervention made at the seventh international congress on family law. Palace of Conventions in Havana, Cuba, from September 22 to 27, 2002.BOSCHKARIEVA, GG: Psychological portrait of the sphere of motivations of young offenders in: LI Bozchovich. Stage of motivations for the behavior of children and adolescents. La Habana, Ed. People and Education, 1976.CAMPOALEGRE, R. Juvenile delinquency in Cuba: Realities and challenges before a new millennium. Doctoral thesis. Instituto Superior del MININT, La Habana, 1998.CEJAS SÁNCHEZ, ANTONIO. Criminology. Ed. Universitaria, La Habana, 1965. NAVARRETE CALDERÓN, CARIDAD. Criminology. Tania de Armas Fonticoba. / et. al /. Ed. Felix Varela, Havana, 2004.Decree Law 64 of 1982 on the care system for minors with conduct disorders. Law 62 of 1987. Penal Code. Law 1287 of 1975. Family Code. VIERA HERNÁNDEZ, MARGARITA C. Fundamental issues on Criminology. Ed. Felix Varela. La Habana, 1987.VIERA HERNÁNDEZ, MARGARITA C. Fundamental topics on Criminology. Ed. Felix Varela. Havana, 2000.
