The laws that effectively opened the gates of jail to children were only legislated recently in 2002, in sweeping reforms to the Criminal Code which, three weeks ago, sentenced a 13-year-old girl to a week in prison for a teenage squabble.
In a special feature, Home Affairs and Justice Minister Tonio Borg argues that the laws were meant to provide a more effective form of punishment for children convicted of heinous crimes such as homicide, where before they would have been sentenced to just a fine.
But in the case of the 13-year-old girl, Borg says that magistrates and judges are still allowed a wide area of discretion to sentence children aged 9-14 to forms of punishment other than incarceration.
Strangely, the parliamentary debates held in 2001 over the reforms did not mention this particular clause. Today, Borg’s Labour counterpart Gavin Gulia claims he does not see the utility of the law because, he says, Malta has no delinquent society among young kids. “I dislike the amendment and I would have preferred to do without it. There are reformative penalties for misconduct and a judge can safely make recourse to them without the need to incarcerate.”

The law that put kids in jail