The country’s only penal institution for young criminals will no longer exist in less than a month, as announced by Chief of Staff Lionel Hurst.
The Boys Training School is currently undergoing renovations and will be ready for use by the end of June.
The closure of the Willkies facility during the pandemic exacerbated its existing repair needs.
The institution housed delinquent minors aged 12-18. Given the recent surge in youth crime, the decision to retrofit the school is well-received.
Officials plan to make the school hurricane resistant, secure against break-ins, and equipped to prevent escape attempts.
The renovations of the training school were partially funded by the OECS and USAID.
ALSO READ THIS POST FROM 2019.
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You mean they got money since 2019 and it is 2023 and nothing done for four years? How pathetic.
@saying… I think we keep forgetting Covid and it’s impact…
You can put up fence with bob wire that still will not reform these young people if you have staff members who have no experience and qualifications working with this population of youths. You can put make up on a pig and it will still be a pig. Many of the staff at this establishment have placed request for transfers and those transfers have been ignored. I am speaking from facts and not opinion. You have some good staff members at this facility who know they are not equipped to work there based on qualification and experience and requested transfers years prior and their transfers have been ignored. If you bring back staff members who do not have the qualifications and experience to work with this young population of troubled teens then you will never fix the issues and these youths will continue with their bad ways. This place has no resources put in place to reform these young boys and you cannot mix trouble teens with at risk youths. If youths are taken out from their homes for their safety they should be taken to a different facility and only house troubled teens at the boys training school.
Another issue I saw as a problem at this facility was the Medical University using these young boys as a semester class credit for their students. The person for the medical university made an agreement with with the past director or whoever he made the agreement with for the students of the university to come one day to meet with the boys for a half hour and that was it they got their class credit for psychology or psychosocial credit. When I saw this occurring I was internally fuming but what can I say as a worker when politics and friend friend have their claws in this decision. For the time I was there the medical university students never returned and as a masters social worker I was saying to myself what type of counseling is this to help the young boys but I knew it was just utilized to profit the university medical students and use the boys as guinea pigs and pawns in the university’s purpose of benefiting their students in a grade n class credit. The guy who was with the students knew I was aware of the bs carrying on because he we locked eyes n he felt my internal disgust. This facility needs real psychosocial counseling for these young boys so they can visualize a better way of life rather than only seeing a violent street life. Real reform needs to be taken place at this faculty and it should be ran and directed by a person who has the passion, compassion and empathy to want the better for these young boys and society. It shouldn’t be ran and directed by these females who just only want a big directors paycheck to keep their nails n hair dune up and drive big jeeps and wear fancy dresses to play a role when they are not initiating any corrective actions are steps for reforming the boys.
And STOP locking up the boys in the cell where they have to SHIT and PISS right there in the dirt where they have to Sleep on the ground.
And STOP having the bigger more ruthless boys BUGGERING the small more timid boys.
And STOP BEATING and Abusing the children, they need rehabilitation not abuse.
Boys training school is a HORROR house. You all are just breeding criminals in that place. You all take children without any criminal record because they are not going to school or because they are having problem in the home they are living in, and put them in there next thing they started following the bad ones because of intimidation and bullying. Good children was ruined in that place. And society have the most names to call the children. That is why some of you all children come out to be worse criminal than the children you all wash you all dutty mouth on. When you have children you are supposed to bta mother for all children, so when you hear a child is in trouble you say and do things like if that child was your own.
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