Through institutional action and focused education of parents and young people, prevention should be established as the primary measure that will reduce the level of juvenile delinquency, and consequently the number of juvenile perpetrators of criminal offenses.
This was stated at meetings organized by the Center for Civic Education (CCE) in Podgorica, Bijelo Polje and Budva, on the topic of treating minors in criminal proceedings - prevention, prosecution and resocialization.
A draft analysis on the treatment of minors in criminal proceedings, prepared by the CCE team, was presented at the meetings.
The participants were representatives of all relevant institutions involved in criminal proceedings against minors, namely the police, social work centers, prosecutor's office, judiciary and psychological and pedagogical services. They were given the opportunity to help identify problems that affect the implementation of existing procedures through discussion, but also to provide comments, suggestions and recommendations for improving procedures related to minors, which will be included in the final version of the study, Marlena Ivanović announced, Associate on programs at CCE.
"We had a great discussion that emphasized the importance of multidisciplinary cooperation in order to combat juvenile delinquency and peer violence. I believe that it is necessary to pay attention to prevention, and only then improve the repressive system, because when a juvenile is the perpetrator of a criminal offense, when he is in court - it is already too late. Therefore, I emphasize prevention as one of the ways to combat juvenile delinquency and peer violence," said Judge of the Court of Appeal Predrag Tabaš.
"The topic is inexhaustible and very important, and the increase in violence also underlines the importance of inter-sectoral cooperation, which is not in dispute, although we have many differences in our perception of this problem. This lively communication is needed to make this inter-sectoral cooperation more functional and to continue to build on it, and meetings like this can help a lot in that," said Marija Lopović, a social worker at the Danilovgrad Social Work Center.
Marko Radović, a social worker from the Public Institution "Ljubović" Center, also emphasizes prevention.
"We need to involve various professions more, have more psychologists and pedagogues in schools, but also social workers. A lot has failed in the system... If the Law on the Treatment of Minors in Criminal Procedure is amended, the emphasis should also be on prevention. We are all aware that we should not be tied to punishments, but to the affirmation of some positive values, so if we exhaust all resources, then let's talk about some repressive measures," he said, as stated in the statement.
Stanko Rakočević, a prosecutor at the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Kolašin, points out that it is very important to expand the institutional framework, with the establishment of closed-type institutes where sentences will be served, where professionals will carry out resocialization. "We currently do not have adequate prison-type institutions where resocialization would be carried out, and that should be the focus," he pointed out.
Jelena Vučetić, prosecutor at the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Bijelo Polje, says that work should be done on prevention and addressing the causes, because "when the consequences occur, it may be too late for that minor."
"We agreed that institutions are somewhat distant from each other, and families and all of us professionals are somewhat distant from the needs of a young person who may come into or has come into conflict with the law, or is registered somewhere as a perpetrator of some misdemeanor, criminal offenses of peer violence, etc.," points out Esad Plunac, head of the Service for Children, Youth, Adults and the Elderly at the Center for Social Work Rožaje.
Nataša Gospić, independent advisor and professional support officer from the Institute for Social and Child Protection Podgorica, believes that linking institutions is necessary.
"The common position is that we need to find some mediators, experts, who would connect this, whether those persons are under the Ministry of Justice, or judicial bodies in the judiciary, the prosecutor's office, or are in social work centers or within education. Someone has to take care of this, because the institutions will not connect on their own," she suggests.
"Meetings like this are very important because they are an opportunity for all of us who deal with this topic in our professional roles to meet physically, and sometimes that is a part that we miss a lot. We need to think together sometimes, to jointly recognize certain problems and to better understand the challenges that all of our colleagues from other sectors face. A lot of it is not clearly prescribed, and the topics we talked about today are ones that we cannot remain immune to," concludes Saša Mamula, a pedagogue from the Tivat Social Work Center.
The meetings, which brought together around 70 participants in three regions, are part of the project "HEART: Supporting the Empowerment and Resilience of Youth Today", financially supported by the EU with co-financing from the Ministry of Public Administration.
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