The CGLPL had also recommended that any infringement on the freedom to correspondence
be justified by precise reasons and be notified to the judge.
The Minister of Justice explains that where, for security reasons, young offenders are asked to
open certain packages in the presence of a youth worker, no formal instruction to notify the judge has
been enacted. The authorities appear to be considering introducing a mail register, keeping a record of
all times mail is opened and the findings. This measure seems to be very appropriate, provided that
express provision be made for such a register to be inspected at periodic intervals by the judicial
authority.
Go ahead with the plans for a mail register, keeping a record of all times mail is opened in
juvenile detention centres and the findings. Submit this register for periodic inspection by the
judicial authority.
The CGLPL had recommended improving young offenders' access to information by allowing
them supervised access to the Internet, email and online press articles.
Instructions from 2015 allow Internet access with filtering systems as regards certain content,
and provide for access to email services to be organised whilst respecting the confidentiality of
correspondence. Preventive actions on Internet use and misuse are carried out with young offenders.
Internet access is guaranteed in juvenile detention centres, but Internet literacy training for the youth
workers will enhance its use and supervision among young offenders.
The CGLPL duly notes this progress.
The CGLPL had recommended a series of measures aimed at involving holders of parental
responsibility in care provision: an information booklet for families, information at regular intervals
on the youth work accomplished and the progress of the young offender and projects being
implemented, organisation of meetings between the holders of parental responsibility and the youth
workers and educational teams.
These obligations stem from a 2002 Act and were most recently restated in 2015 and 2016
provisions, but the Ministry is encountering legal difficulties in imposing upon centres managed by
the authorised associations' sector similar obligations to those to which the public sector is bound.
That said, strong incentive-raising measures are being taken. There are plans to overcome these
difficulties by laying down statutory minimum technical conditions bearing on the organisation and
running of juvenile detention centres in the Social Action and Family Code. Such plans can only be
encouraged.
Plan for statutory minimum conditions regulating the involvement of holders of parental
responsibility in young offenders' care provision.
5.1.4 Care arrangements
The CGLPL's recommendations bore, firstly, on the need to organise schooling, training, cultural,
sports and recreational activities that are likely to help young people to thrive and play a part in
citizenship and, secondly, on the need to train teaching staff assigned to juvenile detention centres.
The Minister of Justice indicates that a 2015 ruling defines the need to permanently organise
daytime activities to support educational actions and organises the schooling of young people in care
on the basis of an individual assessment of acquired skills, so that each youngster is given a
personalised timetable aimed at encouraging their return to ordinary law schemes.
She also explains that, in 2016, the Judicial Youth Protection Service Directorate and General
Directorate for School Education initiated work aimed at placing the question of schooling back
within the broader context of the school and workplace integration programmes of young offenders,
with all judicial youth protection workers to be brought on board.
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