Police lack facilities to deal with juveniles – Nair

The Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police Itendra Nair says the lack of facilities to deal with juveniles is one of the challenges they are facing.

This was highlighted by Nair during a virtual submission to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence about the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.

He was responding to a question by NFP President Pio Tikoduadua.

Nair says most of their infrastructure was built during the 1970s and it was not created to cater for the needs of juveniles.

He says it becomes a challenge for them to keep juveniles in their custody because they have to separate them from adults.

Nair says they have the Nadi, Lautoka and Nakasi Police Stations under construction and they have detention facilities for young offenders.

The Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police says they also lack the expertise needed to deal with the psychology of juvenile offenders.

He says to some extent there has been overseas exposure for some of their officers.