Justice Minister Urges JPs to Mentor Youth in Schools

Justices of the Peace (JPs) are being encouraged to serve as mentors within educational institutions.

The call was made by Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Hon. Delroy Chuck, during a virtual sensitisation session on Thursday (October 2), aimed at engaging JPs in a ministerial dialogue on promoting peace across Jamaica.

“We have far too many areas of national life, institutions, various corners, gullies and banks, where [there] are far too many volatile persons who don’t know how to control their behaviour,” Mr. Chuck said.

“At the slightest provocation, sometimes even the slightest disrespect, we hear persons losing their temper, getting out of control, and oftentimes we have violence emerging from minor disrespect or simple problems within the community,” he added.

According to Mr. Chuck, some of the issues stem from within the school environment, as a growing number of students are engaged in conflict and harmful conduct.

“These are children who are in the same classroom, they play together, walk together; but yet, at the slightest little argument, they get into a fight,” the Minister stated.

He highlighted the St. Ann Justices of the Peace Association, which recently launched the Students Take Ownership Mentorship Programme (STOMP) – an initiative designed to support at-risk youth through school-based mentorship across the parish.

“I would ask, and I intend to urge all the Justices of the Peace Parish Associations to look at how many of our JPs can become mentors within the schools. JPs, there’s absolutely no doubt that our schools are not only areas of education but, sadly, they are areas where a significant amount of violence also occurs,” Mr. Chuck said.

“We want to find a way how we can introduce in every classroom… mentorship, restorative justice, and also child diversion. Child diversion is a very important part of the Ministry of Justice’s Social Justice Programme to, really, not only mentor wayward children but also to give them psychological support and counselling,” he added.

The Minister further encouraged JPs to broaden their impact beyond educational institutions, urging them to extend their influence into the workplace.

“People abuse one another at the workplace and, in many instances, fights and various [levels of] harassment occur at the workplace. We also have to find a way… to make the workplace a place that people feel comfortable in when they go to work, feel happy that they are working and, certainly, avoid conflicts that can cause persons to lose their jobs or for the police to come in to separate or charge anyone,” Mr. Chuck stated.

The sensitisation sessions form part of the Ministry’s ongoing efforts to strengthen the capacity of JPs as justice-sector personnel, while familiarising them with policies designed to expand their scope of service delivery.