Children's ombudswoman finds irregularities in prisons confining young delinquents

Children's ombudswoman Tamara Plamadeala has found irregularities in the school rehabilitating young delinquents from Solonet, Soroca district, and in the minors penitentiary from Lipcani. After discussing with the minors from those two institutions, she proposes recommendations to the authorities in charge, Info-Prim Neo reports. Tamara Plamadeala finds that the Solonet school has had no psychologist for two years, at least. This happens in the circumstances when the institution is designed as a center of social-pedagogical rehabilitation for delinquent children, pursuing to help them with psychological techniques to reintegrate into society, reads a communique issued by the ombudsman. She has found most of the teachers are elderly people and cannot ensure the quality of training, in accordance with the due requirements and curricula. It often happens that a single teacher teaches pupils of different ages. Another irregularity found by Tamara Plamadeala is that the minors are confined within the institution more than the maximum term. This happens because the minors come from vulnerable families and don't have where to return. Anyway, the teenagers say their biggest wish is to return home, she specifies. Tamara Plamadeala recommends the authorities in charge to employ a psychologist for the institution, so that the minors may have psychological rehabilitation, separate education for the children having stolen and for the ones going vagrant, to ask the courts to modify their verdicts so that the children do not stay beyond the established term, etc. After visiting the Lipcani penitentiary, the parliamentary lawyer has found that the children are mostly unhappy with their trials. The detained minors say that, although their parents paid lawyers, they kept silence in courts, and they thus remained defenseless. They got too long terms for medium infractions, the release reads. Tamara Plamadeala recommends the authorities to review the mechanism of punishing minors.