Child diversion committee reviews act sections and stakeholder matrix as July sittings planned

The Joint Select Committee on the Child Diversion Act resumed on 24 June 2026 with a quorum of five members, including Senators Donna Scott Mlay and Shireen Golden Campbell participating online. Minister Dana Morris was absent. Chair Delroy Chuck said the panel hoped to conclude before the end of June but acknowledged that graduation commitments and limited availability could push work into July, with the aim of tabling a report and handling amendments when Parliament returns in September.

After opening prayer, the Ministry of Justice team continued an overview from section 9, reading provisions on confidentiality (section 10), the effect of diversion programmes (section 11), reporting duties (section 12), ineligibility (section 13), and programme development (section 14). Officials flagged concerns that section 12’s reference to a “referring constable” may not reflect how cases move through the system, and that “non-compliance” and “failure to complete” are not clearly distinguished.

Following a suggestion from the Solicitor General to combine the statutory overview with the comparative stakeholder matrix, the committee turned to general submissions. Stakeholders including Daniel Barnes, the Ministry of National Security, the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Jamaica Psychological Society, Freeway Children Foundation, Jamaicans for Justice, Rashid Downer, and the Jamaica Umbrella Group of Churches offered training, case-management, timeline, data-protection, and youth-participation recommendations.

A central debate centred on consensual sexual conduct between minors. Jamaica Constabulary Force figures presented by Mr Wright showed that between 2020 and 2024, 129 children aged 12 to 17 were arrested for sexual intercourse with a person under 16—the second-highest category after assault occasioning bodily harm (142). Jamaicans for Justice analysis indicated that among completed diversion cases in a March 2020–January 2024 sample, about 62 per cent involved that offence. Ministers and members broadly supported decriminalising close-in-age consensual conduct along lines of a long-pending four-year age-gap proposal, while Senator Shireen Golden Campbell pressed for firmer empirical data on arrests, prosecutions, and programme outcomes. Officials also discussed whether decriminalisation would remove the legal basis for diversion, with Minister Chuck floating a broader “delinquent behaviour” pathway and CPFSA representative Kimberly Blackwood Martin outlining planned therapeutic centres for children with behavioural issues.

The committee agreed not to meet on 25 June and scheduled its next sitting for Thursday, 2 July 2026 at 10:00 a.m., with additional July dates to be confirmed.