Cape Town - The appropriate sentences for children used as hired guns for gangsters on the Cape Flats has come under scrutiny after a 13-year-old boy was arrested in possession of a gun near a school yard.
Lukas Muntingh, project co-ordinator at Africa Criminal Justice Reform (ACJR) said child offenders should be prosecuted based on the Child Justice Act.
Zita Hansungule, senior project co-ordinator at the Centre for Child Law said it was established law that child offenders should be afforded special treatment.
Such offenders should be given sentences that were more lenient than those imposed on adults.
Hansungule said the Constitutional Court had embedded child-centred sentencing principles through its judgments by applying section 28 of the Constitution to child offenders.
According to the Child Justice Act, people under the age of 18 are considered minors.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) states that the Child Justice Section refers to young offenders as children from 0 to 18 years.
Community Safety MEC Albert Fritz expressed his concern over the increasing number of juveniles and young people incarcerated in the Western Cape.
Fritz said children should, as far as possible, not be detained and that society should work together to ensure that incarceration was the last option for young people.
He said it was revealed in recent statistics provided by the Correctional Services Department that a significant number of children (persons under the age of 18) and juveniles (people between the ages of 18 and 20 years) were detained in prison.
He said remanded and sentenced children were detained in Brandvlei Youth, Drakenstein Medium B, Pollsmoor Medium A and Mossel Bay prisons.
“The bedrock of a safe society is one where there is a compendium of services, opportunities and support for all young people,” he said.
Manenberg activist Roegshanda Pascoe said: “Nowadays children live in a time where they are exposed to guns.
“They have associated having a gun with power, because they see the police and gangs everywhere.”