Philipsburg: --- The Minister of Justice Magali Jacoba acknowledges that there is an increase in youth crime and something has to be done rather urgently to address the matter. She also said that the Ministry has to find ways to deal with this issue but when asked if she felt, there is need to have a juvenile delinquency center on St. Maarten. Jacoba said she could say “yes” because it is easy to say but the reality of the matter is there is no policy for such centers or as a matter fact there is no policy on youth delinquency in the Netherlands Antilles.
She said this is something they need to work on. She said they first have to work out what vision they have for the youths and how to deal with them prior to building an institution.
Jacoba said that after the paper trail is worked out definitely the centers would be built because there are too many youths in prison.
Whatever and whenever those institutions come on board it has to better than what is in Curacao because whatever facility is built it must be able to deal with the challenges the youths faced, and to enable them to re-integrate in society.
She stressed that there is absolutely nothing (policies) to addresses these issues and they have to work on that prior to building an institution; she made clear that this would not happen anytime soon.