Puerto Rico is submitting its Three Year Plan as part of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA). The Office of Socioeconomic and Community Development (OSECD) is Puerto Rico’s new Designated State Agency and will continue to focus on maintaining compliance with the JJDPA, and assisting non-profit organizations and local government divisions that have or are, implementing delinquency prevention programs.
In the past few years statistical data has reflected a decrease in interventions with minors. This data has been reported and collected by the Police Department, the Department of Justice, the Department of Corrections and the Courts Administration Office. Furthermore, professionals in the in the Juvenile Justice Field have recognized the need for early intervention, making it a key component the identification of the groups at risk. In this case the typical profile of the minor offender in Puerto Rico has been identified as males of 17 years old or less, urban area residents, low socio-economic level, low school performance and high school drop outs. Also data reveals that 422,000 boys and girls in our Island have parents without a secured employment. This is very alarming and need to be addressed because that amount represents 57% of the children of our Island.
All of these factors and many others not yet mentioned are an essential part of the analysis that we are making in order to provide services that are needed in our communities and best serve our juveniles. OSECD focus is to work on the planning and establishment of programs that allow us to bring interventions to the places where these risk groups are identified. Our Agency is committed to our communities and has division that has all the data we need in order to provide assistance and direct services to the minors at risk. The Puerto Rico Juvenile Justice System aims to provide follow-up to the already intervened cases and direct efforts towards the prevention in future cases which is extremely important for these groups. For the next three years, OSECD will focus on the coordination and collaboration with every sector to address the prevention and treatment of the juvenile delinquency and also continue to comply with the Core Requirements of the Act.
