After visiting various centers of the Juvenile Justice System, the General Auditor's Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish) produced a report which detailed the delays observed in several different areas, from the lack of progress in investigations concerning alleged ill-treatment and the abuse of children residing in these homes, to the lack of investigation towards missing work equipment. In the report, the watchdog stressed the "importance" of those procedures being carried out "in a timely manner, so as not to hurt the legitimacy of the staff’s actions", therefore not causing the "weakening of socio-educational work”.

The audit examined the management of the Rights Department for Children, Youth and Family, which operates under the aegis of the Ministry of Social Development of the Nation, which precisely runs the program for promotion and protection of children and adolescents. A section of the report refers to the "deficiencies in the proceedings of the operator’s summaries within the Juvenile Justice System." Specifically, the investigations are done on employees of the institutes as well as on the therapeutic communities for irregularities in their performance.

According to the AGN, they detected "delays in the disposition of the summary information and / or summary citation repetition." There are several examples of this flaw, for example the delay of a complaint of a possible abuse of a minor that stagnate within several repeated citations that could have been avoided, by filling an office staff agent required to specify were that person worked".

In addition, they noted a delay of more than three months to comply with a request for a copy of a medical examination, the boy went to Agote High School in the City of Buenos Aires, who had complained of mistreatment. There was another complaint filed, when two boys were harmed by security personnel and surveillance, also from the Agote High School. In this case, the auditors found that the records did not show movements between December 2010 and April 2011.

And while we are on the subject of delays, it was discovered that one process took so long that it became "ineffective, because they failed to determine their duties, since the agents in question had already retired." And in another case of complaint of ill-treatment, a Deputy Director of an Institute was called to testify after his resignation, "Although the facts would have required immediate testimonial subpoena," says the report.

More Delays

The AGN recalls in their research that on June 15th, 2007 a young guard escaped from Alvear Hospital, where he was in the custody of two officers who were later punished with a four year suspension on December 6th, 2011.

As for the escape of the two boys, the report includes an extreme example. "On January 19th, 2010 a minor fled the Argerich Hospital with the help of two security guards; the boy had been transferred from another institute with a medical prescription. After several notifications to the prosecutor's office, the file has not had any movement since December 10th "of that same year”.

Delays in management issues are also recorded in more superficial situations. For example, AGN says that "a preliminary investigation was initiated following a complaint by several equipments went missing in the Agote Institute (sports complexes, pullovers, shirts, towels, a thermo fuser machine, etc.)". The offenses were committed on June 12th, 2009, but the direction of the Institute reported it on July 6th and had to wait until August 11th for the corresponding complaint with the police. "The brief recorded citation reiterations, procedural wrongdoing, and the last movement of the case was in September 2011 without having completed the process," the report states.

A Secretariat, Two Directorates

The AGN details that the Department for Children, Youth, and Family Rights is composed of two national directorates: Promotion and Protection, and The Young Offenders of Criminal Law.

The watchdog visited the former directorate Roga Tekova Therapeutic Community, which is on an island in the Buenos Aires district of Tigre, and the Garrigós Center of the City of Buenos Aires, which works under the auspices of that area.

At the Tekova Roga Institute, young men are sent from either court orders or by their own or family initiatives for treatment, there were "serious damage and deficiencies in the building structure, moisture in walls, a lack of paint, inadequate heating, and decaying bathrooms". In addition, "no procedure manuals for various activities, such as organization expenses, activities, administration, among others. It has no computer connection with the National Secretariat for Children, Youth, and Family. And have yet to finish installing the underground water supply," states the AGN.

Moreover, when it comes to the second directorate, The Young Offenders Criminal Law, the audit team visited the centers of Belgrano, Agote, and Roca. All three are for males between 17 and 20 years of age, and operate under the closed system, i.e. with perimeter security provisions and plans to build with the help of the boys a stage of detachment from the transgressions to the law.

During the tour through these institutions several shortcomings were found, for example, construction matters. According to the AGN, "In the Belgrano Center there were paint, humidity, and electricity issues, as well as, poor bathrooms, missing stonework windows, the security personnel locker is damaged, part of the floor is raised, no fire hoses, cells have no shelves for storing clothes and / or items belonging to the children.“ In the Rocca Center they went so far as to order a power unit “because of the constant power outages”. 

Moreover, in the three centers technicians noted "missing bedding (sheets, blankets) was detected, towels and cleaning supplies were also missing." The investigation also added that at the Belgrano Center there was a lack of mattresses. "The mattresses were provided by the Production Workshop for the Blind under the auspices of The Rights Department for Children, Youth, and Family, an activity that was temporarily suspended", this situation remained as such while the report was being written, which analyzed data from 2010 and recently was approved this year.

However, the audit also stresses administrative errors. For example, there are no procedure manuals related to income and expenses of the children, nor details about their behavior and education. Specifically the Agote and Belgrano Center, it was observed that teens sign a paper which has the rules of coexistence explained, and after they read these requirements, the document is filed in their records.

To get the complete picture we must add that, in the management of information, the AGN states that in the Belgrano Center the "minute book on admissions, has many inconsistencies”. Some children had never been admitted. At Agote, “inconsistencies were also in the Judicial Book Guard”. In all three institutions the watchdog found records of children who had already left, these files should have either been destroyed or sent to the central archive.