On 3rd of April 2007, the Mobile Team within the Institute for Penal Reform has visited the Rezina Prison no 17, and on 6th of April the prison no. 13 in Chisinau, aiming to provide legal aid to persons remanded in custody, due to the fact that they are treated worse than the persons sentenced to imprisonment. The juveniles have been also provided legal aid, considering that they represented a special category, which need first of all to be assisted. After the discussions between the lawyers of the mobile team and the juveniles remanded in custody, there have been found out a lot of infringements, among them:
Infringement of right to defense, particularly at the stage of criminal prosecution. In many cases the juveniles have no legal assistance neither during arrest nor while in detention, being unable to pay a contracted lawyer. During the interrogation process his presence hasn’t been ensured as well, and the juveniles have been forced to sign different documents in the absence of the lawyer, the decisions to continue the remand in custody were not appealed in the superior court.
In many cases the juveniles relatives were not informed about their arrest.
The presence of the legal representative, educator, and psychologist wasn’t ensured during interrogation as well.
Often the juveniles complained of being beaten by police in order to recognize the facts they hadn’t committed.
In some cases the terms of remand in custody of juveniles have been exceeded.
They haven’t been explained their rights, which made impossible for them to defend themselves.
At the trial they haven’t been even explained about the community work and if they agreed to be applied such a sanction.
An unordinary case was that of a minor, after being convicted by the first instance on art. 171 par. 2 of Criminal Code of RM, to 5,6 years, has appealed the decision, but his layer determined him to withdraw his action because it might be aggravated by the court of appeal. Another case was that of a minor, who stealing a pair of trousers, a pair of shoes, a jacket and other articles of clothes in order not to be frozen, who had been sent out by his parents addicted to alcohol and careless, has been sentenced to 1 year of imprisonment. But there existed the possibility for them to be applied the sanction of community work or that of conditional suspension of the sanction. In many cases the juveniles if asked about their agreement to do community work instead of imprisonment, they answered in the affirmative.
The problems encountered by juveniles on remand in custody: A great party of the interviewed juveniles is convicted for theft, and if asked the reason, they replied that their parents had abandoned them, or had no parents at all, to take care of them. Thus, they were forced to feed themselves by all means. In most cases, the juveniles said their families were disorganized, being ill-treated since childhood, particularly by their fathers, addicted to alcohol. The low level of education, the lack of support and paternal care, the lack of the well-organized work of social bodies dealing with the problems of difficult families all that lead to commitment of crimes by juveniles.
