Probation report blames education system failure for teen’s incarceration

Dec 24, 2011 News

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Guyana is quickly becoming a country where officials do as they please without consideration for the consequences.
That was the summation of a Probation Report which was recently presented in the New Amsterdam Magistrate’s Court with respect to a 16-year-old boy who was facing several misdemeanor charges.
According to the report, the Edinburgh, East Bank Berbice teen, who was charged with the offence of break and enter, was let down by the education system because he was expelled from the school he had attended by the headmistress. The Headmistress issued an open transfer although it was not requested by the lad’s mother, and which is against the policy of the Ministry of Education.
Such a transfer can only be issued by the Chief Education Officer.
In a subsequent interview with Kaieteur News, the teen’s mother stated that at no time did she request a transfer and was not assisted by the headmistress or the Education Department. She claimed that she personally sought an audience with a Regional Education official but was literally ignored and insulted by the official.
The teen mother stated that she was invited to her son’s school and was told that her son and a female were caught together in a compromising position in the school. She stated the headmistress told her to “let your son go to the boy’s school”.  She was allegedly then given an open transfer by the headmistress although she had not requested any. The woman said that she refused to collect the transfer.
According to the mother, the headmistress refused to allow her son to return to the school. The woman said she eventually visited the school and uplifted the transfer which she took to the Department of Education. In the meantime the girl whose father is a businessman was reportedly allowed to continue her schooling.
At the Department of Education, the mother claimed that officials promised to investigate the matter but nothing was done. She was eventually told that she should take her son to another Berbice school, but the headmistress at that school also refused to accept him.
The mother claimed she returned to the Department of Education and again sought out the Education official she had first spoken to. She said that the official told her that as far as she is concerned, the matter was finished and her son cannot return to the school system and she should take him to a private school. The woman stated that having nowhere else to go, she subsequently took him at a private school in New Amsterdam, Berbice. However due to her financial constraints she was unable to make the $12,000 payments in a timely manner thus her son could not have continued.
According to the mother, her son was eventually locked up by ranks at the Central Police Station for over five days in October without being charged on an allegation by the said girl’s father about a missing laptop computer. She claimed her son had made a report about the computer to the said police station. The police had stated that they could not find such report. However after four days the statement was found but her son was not immediately released.
According to the probation the lad’s incarceration “took a tremendous impact on him.  Thus, it appears that the teen, not having anything noteworthy to do with his time, seized the opportunity to roam the streets with deviant peers, which in turn, makes him vulnerable in the community in which he resides and also in the wider society. It continued “However, the writer of this report is of the humble opinion that the Offender is now experiencing a state of ‘identity confusion’, as such…(name of teen given) appears to have a difficult and is seemingly unable to cope with rejection at this particular stage of development”.
Her son was arrested and charged in November on a matter of Break & Enter and has expressed remorse for his misconduct. That matter was eventually dismissed and he was placed on a bond for one year under Statutory Supervision.
But while incarcerated, the teen was again charged with theft. That matter was also dismissed for want of prosecution, since no statement was taken and the accusers never attended court.
The report also highlighted how the headmistress who is no stranger to controversies refused to speak to the Probation officer.
Attorney at law Charrandass Persaud who was in court when the report was being read immediately offered his services free of cost.
According to the report in an interview with the teen, the lad said that “he felt rejected, frustrated and angry subsequent to his departure from the latter school since he disclosed that the circumstance under which he was forced to leave school was unjust and unwarranted”.
The teen has expressed his willingness to continue his secondary education, with a hope towards speedy resolution to this situation.

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