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The Home Affairs Minister has moved to "urgently address" a "longstanding issue" regarding the treatment of young offenders under the island's mental health law.
Young offenders in secure accommodation could be allowed to move to a specialist mental health facility while they receive treatment, if a proposition lodged by Deputy Mary Le Hegarat is approved.
New draft regulations have been put forward by the Home Affairs Minister to update the 2016 Mental Health Law.
A report accompanying the proposition explains that the intention is to broaden the scope of the law to include secure accommodation, enabling "the timely transfer of young people to an approved establishment, where, in the clinical opinion of two doctors it is necessary due to that young person suffering from a mental disorder of a nature or degree that makes the transfer to an approved establishment appropriate".
Pictured: Home Affairs Minister Mary Le Hegarat explained that the current law infringes on the human rights of children.
Currently the law makes reference to prisoners, prisons and young offenders institutions, but does not cover secure accommodation, which is where the majority of young people serve youth detention sentences.
Young offenders institutes are considered "a placement of absolute last resort", the report notes.
If passed, the new regulations would further underpin Jersey's commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, after the island became a signatory to the convention in June 2014.
Article 24 of the convention requires jurisdictions to recognise the right of a child "to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health", with a direction that no child should be deprived of the right to access to such health care services.
The report notes that "the island's Mental Health Law, as currently enacted, does not fully comply with article 24 and therefore infringes on children’s UNCRC rights in Jersey".
A spokesperson for the Children's Commissioner said the commissioner, Dr Carmel Corrigan, had been liaising with Government officials over the proposed new measures.
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