INTRODUCTION
Children are susceptible to many hazards and therefore require exceptional protection. Consequently, various national and international laws have made provisions to promote and protect their rights. Article 3(2) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC; United Nations General Assembly 1989) implores State parties, parents, legal guardians and other individuals to safeguard the child’s well-being. The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (African Union 1999) has equally highlighted the welfare and security of the child. It indicates that the child should grow up in a family environment characterized by happiness, love and understanding to realize his/her full and harmonious development.
In Ghana, much premium is placed on the safety of the child. Article 28(1a) of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of GhanaFootnote 1 emphasizes that children must be treated with special care, support and maintenance as necessary for their development by their natural and other legal wardens. The Children’s Act, 1998 (Article 5 of Act 560)Footnote 2 of Ghana reiterates the need for specific security for the child. It states that “no person shall deny a child the right to live with his parents and family and grow up in a caring and peaceful environment unless otherwise directed by the Court”. Traditionally, children are considered gifts from God and the ancestors (Nukunya Reference Nukunya2003) and are understood to be: an investment of social consequences; contributions to status symbols and old age; and economic assets (Gyekye Reference Gyekye1996). Thus, they are regarded as the embodiment of family values and morals. The Ghanaian concept is that the child is right or morally right and only needs some direction (Nukunya Reference Nukunya2003). The child, in this regard, requires care and guidance.
Articles 1 and 2 of the UNCRC (United Nations General Assembly 1989) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (African Union 1999), respectively, define a child as any person below the age of 18 years. This provision has been ratified by several countries worldwide, including Ghana. Section (1) of the Children’s Act 1998 (Act 560) of Ghana and Article 28 of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution similarly defines a child as a person below 18 years. Articles 11, 27(2) and 28 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana have several provisions for the protection of the rights of children who are seen to be vulnerable. Article 28 of the Constitution states that “Parliament shall enact such laws as are necessary to ensure the rights of children”. Ghana’s policy on child protection has resulted in the promulgation of the Children’s Act 1998 (Act 560) and the Juvenile Justice Act 2003 (Act 653).Footnote 3
As among other countries, Ghana’s legal provisions demand that the rights of children at all times should be promoted and protected even if they infringe the law. It also requires that the police, an official agency or body responsible for crime control and the maintenance of public order, which are essential elements underpinning safety and development (Marfo Reference Marfo2015), should have a firm knowledge and understanding of the various provisions relating to child rights. This ensures that in pursuit of any justice, the outcome does not imperil the child in terms of his/her transformation and future development. As noted by Sharma (Reference Sharma2021), the juvenile justice system is an adjudication approach which targets the protection, care, rehabilitation, resettlement and reintegration of juveniles who flout the law. This is in accordance with the tenet of the Theory of Transformative Justice (which underpinned the study), as opposed to the Retributive Justice system structure.
According to Nocella (Reference Nocella2011), the Theory of Retributive Justice is based on a punitive discipline such as the death penalty, life prison sentences and other forms of incarceration. The Transformative Justice system, however, requires that children and young people be treated reasonably, appropriately and not detrimentally. It provides a safe environment for children to develop (Nocella Reference Nocella2011). As earlier hinted by Culyer (Reference Culyer1981), the interest of social administration is not the punishment but how to reform the juvenile delinquent. This makes the whole philosophy of child protection and friendly policing a laudable societal initiative. Implementing child rights and juvenile justice delivery policies is seen as a universal call by States.
It is against this frame of thinking that in Ghana the criminal capacity of a child is pegged at the age of 12 years (section 26 of the Criminal Offences Act 1960 (Act 29)).Footnote 4 In the United Kingdom and South Africa, criminal liability is fixed at 14 and 15 years, respectively (Skelton and Badenhorst Reference Skelton and Badenhorst2011). Crime as a legal construct varies in terms of interpretation from one country to another (Twumasi Reference Twumasi1985), and, likewise, the provisions on the criminal capacity of a child. Nonetheless, there are sufficient provisions in national and international legal policy documents across States that target the protection of children in general and delinquent children, technically construed as children in conflict with the law.
Child Rights Policies
Article 40(1) of the UNCRC (United Nations General Assembly 1989) states that during police and court procedures, juveniles should receive special treatment to promote their sense of dignity and worth. The Interagency Panel on Juvenile Justice Reform (Juvenile Justice Panel 2010) espouses that the child has the right to privacy in any proceeding before a knowledgeable and neutral body, and any matter in contention should be treated in the presence of the parent. It envisages that the conduct of the Court with restricted freedom should be employed as the last available choice that should be replaced by options such as supervision, education and professional training programmes. Article 40 of the UNCRC (United Nations General Assembly 1989) calls for the respect of the rights of the child; to be informed of the charges preferred against him/her; to be presumed blameless until proven guilty; not to be forced to give testimony; not to be compelled to confess guilt; to be interviewed in the presence of parents and professionals; to have access to legal assistance in preparing for the court trial; and to have his/her parents or legal guardians instantly informed of his/her arrest and detention except if it is against the child’s interests. It further outlines that the child has the right to the free services of an interpreter if he/she does not understand or does not speak the language used at the interview and to be taken to Court for the hearing within 48 hours of the arrest, with a guardian and social worker attending. Article 6 of the UNCRC (United Nations General Assembly 1989) championed that a child’s arrest, detention or imprisonment may be used only as a measure of last resort.
These rights are recognized in Ghana under the Children’s Act 1998 (Act 560), the Juvenile Justice Act 2003 (Act 653) and the 1992 Constitution (Articles 14, 15 and 19). Ghana’s Constitution mandates that the child should not be tortured or exposed to inhuman treatment. The law also indicates that a charge made jointly against a juvenile and a person who has attained the age of 18 years shall be heard by a Court of Summary Jurisdiction other than that of a Juvenile Court (Section 17(3) of Juvenile Justice Act 2003 (Act 653). Section 18 of the Juvenile Justice Act 2003 (Act 653), however, provides that when a juvenile offender is found liable, the Court shall remit the case to a Juvenile Court for sentencing and could be convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment, not more than three years (Juvenile Justice Act 2003, Section 46). Article 15(4) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana unequivocally indicates that such a juvenile should be sent to juvenile cells or junior correctional centres but not adult prisons or cells.
The emerging picture from the preceding discussions is that the child’s rights are sensitive in the eyes of the law. However, across the globe, the literature has recorded various breaches of children’s rights, even in those places that should offer them protection, friendliness, developmental encouragement, shelter and promotion of their rights. Children are either killed by the police, illegally detained or physically assaulted (Bochenek Reference Bochenek2016; Human Rights Watch and ACLU 2020). Alfonseca (Reference Alfonseca2021) reported that since 2015, the police in the United States, for instance, have killed over 100 children, 15 of them less than 15 years of age.
In Ghana, it is on record that a 15-year-old child was detained in Tamale Central Prison, the study locality, for a year awaiting trial for the alleged stealing of a motorbike (Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice 2019). Crabbie (Reference Crabbie2019) reported that a 15-year-old boy, Abdallah Mohammed, was sentenced to 25 years in the Kumasi Central Prison for allegedly robbing someone of 10 Ghanaian cedis (GH¢10.00; about US$1.60). It was also reported that a 12-year-old child, together with two others aged three and five years, were arrested and detained for hours in the nation’s capital Accra by the Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB) Police, Railway Unit, for allegedly stealing GH¢300.00 (about US$49) and a cell phone from a trader (Ayittey Reference Ayittey2017). These acts contravened the child rights provision documents in the country.
Seemingly, the issue of child rights abuse has not been given the needed attention by scholars as expected in Ghana. For instance, Ohene-Konadu (Reference Ohene-Konadu2009) and Alenoma (Reference Alenoma2012) studied which targeted children in need of care were principally involved in factors that accounted for child streetism and the attendant repercussions. These studies were silent about the justice delivery involving children in conflict with the law. Ame (Reference Ame2011), whose work focused on the rights of children in Ghana, did not look intently at the relationship that exists between the police and the delinquent child in the process of justice delivery. His study concluded that while the new Juvenile Justice Act looks decent on paper, there needs to be more policy and practice. Adu-Gyamfi’s (Reference Adu-Gyamfi2020) study also touched on the justice delivery of juvenile offenders in the country. His study, however, was skewed towards the establishment of child panels by local authorities in mediating minor offences to the neglect of larger child-friendly policing in the country, which is critical for the overall distinct treatment of the juvenile to achieve rehabilitation and reintegration. Though helpful, these studies have created a scholarly gap, necessitating an empirical study of this nature. As a society, we will only be able to offer any pragmatic solution targeting the reformation of children who contravene societal laws only if we understand how they find themselves in the justice delivery process. This is the niche of the current study.
METHODOLOGY
Research Design
This study employed a convergent mixed-methods design. According to Creswell and Creswell (Reference Creswell and Creswell2018), this design enables the researcher to collect both quantitative and qualitative data simultaneously and fuse them to analyse the research problem comprehensively. This approach typically enabled the researchers to mix the information in the interpretation and present holistic results about the attitude of the police towards children in conflict with the law in the study locality.
Profile of the Study Locality
The Northern Region is one of the 16 regions of Ghana and consists of 16 administrative districts, with Tamale as the regional capital (Mutuku Reference Mutuku2021). The region in 2021 had a total human population of 2,310,939 (Ghana Statistical Service 2021). In terms of policing, the region is under the command of the Northern Regional Police (headed by a Deputy Commissioner), mandated by the 1992 Constitution (Article 200) to: protect life and property, prevent and detect crime, apprehend and prosecute offenders, preserve peace and good order, and enforce all laws and regulations with which it is directly charged. The Northern Regional Police Command has two police divisions, 16 police districts and 50 police stations/posts, with a total police strength of 1,158. This gives the region a police:citizen ratio of 1:1,996, which is about four times higher than the United Nations’ recommended ratio of 1:500. The police have to redouble their efforts to ensure a sound and secure environment for the citizenry.
Sample
The study employed probability and non-probability sampling techniques to select 291 respondents comprising 177 police officers, 20 children in conflict with the law, 20 affected parents and two key informants. Given the high enumeration cost and time constraint, the study purposely selected five police districts relatively known for crimes and child criminality. This enabled the researchers to acquire in-depth information about the concepts under study. The total police working population for the five selected districts was 283 (Northern Region Police Command 2022). Yamane’s (Reference Yamane1967) sample size determination approach was employed to select the required number of respondents from the target population of 283. The combined sample from both male police personnel (182) and female police (101) constituted the final sample size (177). After determining the required number of respondents, a proportionate sampling approach was employed to select a specific number of police respondents from each of the selected districts. The sample size obtained from the study using Yamen’s approach is shown below in Table 1. Sample size formula:
Yamane (Reference Yamane1967:886)
n = N/〖1 + N(e)〗^2
N = Sample frame (283)
n = Sample or sample size
e = Error margin (0.05)
For males: n=182/(1+182(0.05)2 = 114
For females: n=101/(1+101(0.05)2 = 63
Total police population =177 (114 + 63)
Table 1. Summary of Selected Respondents from the Targeted Police Districts
Source: Field survey (2021).
Also, 20 affected parents and 20 children in conflict with the law were purposely sampled for this study. The names of the affected parents were obtained from the Northern Regional Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU), a police unit which is primarily responsible for handling cases involving children. Furthermore, one official from the Northern Regional DOVVSU and a Human Rights Lawyer from Tamale were used as key informants. In the researchers’ estimation, selecting the various categories of participants was critical to unravel the problem that mooted the study.
Data Sources and Analysis
Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through questionnaire administration and interviews simultaneously. Questionnaire administration was employed to gather data from the 177 selected police participants. A personal interview was conducted with 20 affected children and their parents/wards, respectively, with the aid of semi-structured questionnaires on issues of the criminal capacity of a child and the handling of children by the police. In addition, an in-depth interview was employed to gather relevant information from the two key informants using interview guides. Primary data were complemented by secondary information generated through a critical review of newspaper articles and official websites. The researchers were mindful of the participants’ rights, such as anonymity and confidentiality. Given the objective of the study, thematic and descriptive analysis approaches were employed to analyse both qualitative and quantitative data, respectively.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Demographic Characteristics of the Participants
The study first presented findings of the relevant demographic characteristics of the selected participants. Table 2 depicts the number of respondents selected from each category of the targeted population.
Table 2. Sex Distribution of Participants
Source: Field survey (2021).
The study revealed that the majority, 16/20 (80.0%), of the parents interviewed were males instead of females (4/16). A similar trend was observed for the children in conflict with the law. The results showed that the majority (13/20) of the interviewees were males, with only seven (35.0%) being females. The indication is that boys are likely to commit crimes more than girls. This assertion was validated by the Encyclopedia of World Problems & Human Potential (Union of International Associations 2022) which reported that boy offenders outnumber girls in a ratio of about 10:1 globally. It noted that among all crimes committed by children, crimes against property are the dominant. In total (including the key informants), the male participants were 145/219, representing 66.0%, as opposed to the female participants of 74 (34.0%). The skew nature of males is attributed to the fact that more males were found in the police service than women (Ghana Police Service 2018). This finding was normal, as according to the International Security Ligue (2019), men dominate in the global security profession for every nation worldwide. The data, however, indicated that the views of both males and females were fairly catered for.
In terms of educational achievements (Table 3), the study found that the majority, 143 (80.7%) of the police officers, had acquired senior high/secondary educational status. Further, 24 in aggregate had either acquired diploma or degree qualifications. The results suggested that the Ghana Police Service needs to step up its in-service training to enhance members’ knowledge based on emerging knowledge trends. The dynamic nature of society and crime requires academic and professional knowledge to enhance crime prevention and detection at all times. Like the police participants, most parents (8/20) had acquired senior high school education. Only two had no formal education. All the children considered in the study had at least attained some academic knowledge. Of these, 17 had dropped out of school. This finding aligned with Alenoma’s (Reference Alenoma2012) and Ohene-Konadu’s (Reference Ohene-Konadu2009) studies, which revealed that street children in Tamale and Accra were more predisposed to criminal acts than those in school and under family control. Sharma’s (Reference Sharma2021) study using the India National Records Bureau (the nodal authority for collecting and analysing data) equally found that juveniles in criminal cases with higher education (3.29%) were far less than those with educational qualification above primary to matriculation (44.5%). The finding suggests that children who drop out of school at a tender educational level are more prone to criminal activities. They need more innovative programmes to make them functional and productive, as suggested by the Theory of Transformative Justice.
Table 3. Educational Status of Participants
Source: Field survey (2021).
A study of this nature requires police participants of some level of maturity and working experience (Table 4). The study found that the average age of the police personnel in the study locality was 31.5 years. The least age identified by the study was 19 years, with 58 years being the highest age. The findings suggest that the study region has fairly young personnel who can serve the police service for a very long time. There is a need to provide them with relevant accoutrements, knowledge and skills for the effective execution of their statutory mandate.
Table 4. Age and Working Experience of Police Officers
Source: Field survey (2022).
The study further revealed a linkage between working experience and the age of the participants. The police participants with the least working experience happened to be 19 years old and had served the Service for only one year. This validates the fact that the Constitution of Ghana (1992) permits only people of 18 years and above to be recruited into the security services and all other establishments in the country. The participant with the longest working experience (35 years) was 58 years old, and the average working experience was seven years. This was indicative that the personnel had gained some level of practical knowledge about policing and were familiar with issues of child delinquency, two major issues relevant to the study.
Concerning the parents, all were at least 30 years. The parent with the least age was 38 years, with the maximum being 57 years old. This could suggest that the parents were fairy old to understand the nature of the problem presented in the study. The results also revealed that none of the children was below the age of 12 years. The least age was 14 years, with the oldest person being 17 years. This suggests that all children, by law, have the criminal capacity to commit a crime. The emerging idea is that most children in the study locality start committing crimes at the age of 14 years.
The Ghana Police is a well-structured regimental institution headed by the Inspector-General of Police. The Assistant Superintendent of Police ranks lowest in the senior officers’ schedule (Ghana Police Squad Notes, unpublished book for the training of police recruits in Ghana). However, there are other ranks, such as chief inspector, inspector, sergeant, corporal, lance corporal and constable (Table 5). The study revealed that an aggregate of 175 (98.9%) of the police participants were constables and non-commissioned officers, and only two (1.1%) were commissioned officers. This finding suggests that supervision may be problematic when cases involving children are referred to junior-rank officers for investigation.
Table 5. Ranks of Police Officers
Source: Field survey (2022).
Offences Committed by Juveniles
Children across the globe are vulnerable to various degrees of crime. Prominent among these crimes are stealing, gambling and drug addiction (Kappeler and Potter Reference Kappeler and Potter2017). It is estimated that about 30 million children in developing countries are vulnerable to stealing, which is attributed to these developing countries’ poor states (Mohammadi Reference Mohammadi2021). The results revealed a similar trend. Crimes generally committed by children were given as stealing (109/177), sexual offences (78/177), drug-related crimes (57/177) and vandalism (58/177). Stealing was found to be the dominant crime committed by children in the Northern Region. This information was validated by the Tamale DOVVSU Annual Crime Report (Northern Regional DOVVSU 2018), which indicated that stealing represented 31.2% of all childhood crimes, as captured by Table 6.
Table 6. Crime Committed by Children in Tamale
Source: DOVVSU Regional Headquarters, Tamale (Northern Regional DOVVSU 2018).
The Criminal Capacity of a Child
The researchers sought the knowledge of the police on who is a child in conflict with the law. According to Ortega (Reference Ortega2002), knowledge and understanding are critical drivers of behaviour. In response, 42/177 participants, about 24%, had the answer wrong. The good thing was that the majority (76%) got the response right. The emerging picture was that the lower-ranked generally had a good knowledge of the concept. Even though the other higher-ranked police had a fair knowledge of the concept, their understanding could have been better compared to the lance corporals and constables (junior officers). This finding could be attributed to the fact that child-friendly policing is a new concept introduced as part of the police recruit training guide (Ghana Police Service 2016). The senior police officers needed to be trained on this concept; hence, they had a low understanding of it. For skills to be developed further, seminars are required among those working in juvenile justice, like the police. Knowledge acquisition through training in this regard is very important. On this note, Ortega (Reference Ortega2002) wrote that experience is important in acquiring facts, information, skills and education. Exposing the senior police officers to issues involving children in contact with the law will enable them to play their supervisory role as expected by law and society’s expectations.
Section 26 of Ghana’s Criminal Offences Act 1960 (Act 29) pegged the criminal capacity of a child at 12 years. Police knowledge of this provision is critical as it will reflect how they respond to offences committed by children. Further, the police participants were asked as to the minimum age at which a child is presumed to have the capacity to infringe the penal law. The majority of the police participants, 106 (60%), were of the view that the age at which a child can be presumed to have the capacity to infringe the penal law is 14 years, even though the Criminal Offences Act 1960 (Act 29) explicitly places the age at 12 years and above. This revelation suggests that there is a gap between police knowledge of children in conflict with the law and the criminal capacity of a child. This variance has the capacity to influence their mode of policing and justice delivery (Table 7).
Table 7. Police Description of a Child in Conflict with the Law
Source: Field study (2021).
Relationship of Police with Children in Conflict with the Law
The affected children were requested to respond to their experiences with the police based on some nine-point child rights policy issues espoused by the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, the UNCRC (United Nations General Assembly 1989) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (African Union 1999), among others. The results are presented in Table 8.
Table 8. Treatment of Children by the Police (n = 20)
Source: Field survey (2021).
From Table 8, with regards to the number of hours in detention, the data showed that the right of children according to Article 14(3b) of the 1992 Constitution, which indicates that no person arrested should be kept in cells for more than 48 hours, was enforced by the police. This was considered very productive. It was clear from the children’s responses that the police in Northern Region collected money before bail was granted, contrary to the claim by all the 177 police officers interviewed that bail was free. Seven of the 20 children said their parents paid money to the police for bail, and the parents corroborated this. The finding is in line with a recent study by Marfo, Badu-Yeboah and Gyader (Reference Marfo, Badu-Yeboah and Gyader2021) and the earlier work of Faull (Reference Faull2011), which suggested that the police took bribes and released suspects without charges, and unprofessionally responded to crime situations. According to Marfo et al. (Reference Marfo, Badu-Yeboah and Gyader2021), this has affected the public trust and confidence in the police.
The study found that the constitutional rights of the child not to be tortured in any way (Article 15(2a) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana) was disobeyed by a section of the police. The results showed that the police tortured six children, representing 30%. Two of the children said they were whipped with a leather belt by the police. This was corroborated by their parents, who claimed that their children came home on bail with marks of assault on their bodies. One of the affected children remarked: “A policewoman pulled my ear while interviewing me.” Corroborating the act of torture of children by the police, one parent said during an interview in 2022: “The police officer slapped my son, and it happened in my presence on the day of my son’s arrest in my house.” This revelation, though denied by the police, is a manifestation that some police officers spurn the rights of children suspected of wrongdoing. This act violates the tenets of child-friendly policing.
Children and adults detained in police custody, for whatever offences, are to be fed by the police. In this study, seven children said they were fed solely by their parents. This means that without the parents’ assistance, the children would have gone hungry in police custody, an affront to the children’s rights. The police in response indicated that they are unable, and often find it difficult to feed people in custody due to inadequate or lack of rations or money from the government. This was corroborated by one of the key informants.
The study found that a lawyer represented none of the 20 children interviewed. A check from the parents revealed that the police informed five of their right to counsel, but they did not have money. Another 15 affected parents, contrarily, said the police did not inform them. This means that the police did not respect the rights of children in conflict with the law according to Article 19(f) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana and rule 15 of the Beijing Rules of 1985 as espoused by the United Nations,Footnote 5 which highlights the right of a child to a lawyer. By implication, the affected juveniles were questioned without the presence of either a custodian or lawyer. This finding buttressed the work of Hoffmann and Baerg (Reference Hoffman and Baerg2011). Their study found that in most of the selected police stations in Accra, Ghana, the police were usually unable or unwilling to find the guardians of the juvenile while they were in police cells. Their study further revealed that juveniles were quizzed without a guardian or lawyer present. This revelation calls for much awareness creation for the police.
Article 15(4) of the 1992 Constitution states that a juvenile in lawful custody or detention shall be kept separate from adult offenders. However, the study found that most children (15/20) who conflicted with the law were kept in adult prisons or cells. This finding is not surprising since Northern Region has only one juvenile detention centre at Sakasaka, Tamale. A check from the Social Welfare Department revealed that the only juvenile remand home at Nyahini in Tamale had been closed for lack of maintenance. In such circumstances, the police may have no other means than to keep young offenders in adult cells or prison. However, more is needed to justify the action, as it undermines the spirit of transformation espoused by the Theory of Transformative Justice which supported the study. It also defeats the tenet of friendly policing introduced into the Ghana Police Service in 2016. The implication of keeping children with adults in custody is that the children would be polluted by the adult suspects and are more likely to commit serious offences on their release from custody.
The emerging picture is that Ghana needs to do more and may be seen as “talking much” but with “little action”. This view is validated by the work of Ame (Reference Ame2011), which revealed that there is a vast difference between Ghana’s policy document on juvenile justice and practice. While the country has various brilliant provisions targeting children’s rights, more needs to be done to actualize these rights. This could explain why the whole study region has no single functional juvenile remand home. The key informants expressed that the country needs to do much in terms of its justice delivery involving children.
CONCLUSION
This study examined the police knowledge of the legal definition and the criminal capacity of the child and how they respond to the rights of children in conflict with the law. The study established that most crimes committed by children involved stealing, sexual offences, drug-related crimes and vandalism. However, stealing was found to be the dominant crime. It was also revealed that police knowledge of who a child is was relatively high (76%) compared to their knowledge of the child’s criminal capacity (40%). The study found that the pattern of knowledge by police officers in terms of the criminal capacity of a child varies according to rank, with lower ranks being more knowledgeable than senior-rank officers. This was attributed to the fact that the child-friendly policing concept was introduced to the Ghana Police Service barely six years ago when most of the older police service personnel had left the police training institutions. The study concluded that policing arrangements in the study locality in terms of justice delivery of the delinquent child have not been relatively child-friendly, in that detention in adult cells, denial of food while in custody, torture and collection of bribes before granting bail to children are still practised by a section of police personnel. These practices are detrimental to the well-being of the child. The policing approach in the study locality has to be revamped to ensure that the outcome of the justice delivery improves the future development of the children in conflict with the law in consonance with the Theory of Transformative Justice, which anchored the study.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to all the respondents for volunteering information wholeheartedly.
Samuel Marfo is a Professor of Conflict Resolution at the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, Ghana (SDD-UBIDS). Professor Marfo has worked in the area of peace, conflict and security for over 35 years. He is interested in peace and conflict resolution, road safety, democratic consolidation and cross-border crime and security.
Halidu Musah is a Senior Lecturer in Political Science/French at the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, Ghana (SDD-UBIDS). He is interested in ethnic conflict resolution and peace education and has worked in those areas for more than 25 years.
Florence Naah Bamora is a Lecturer at the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, Ghana (SDD-UBIDS). Dr Bamora has worked for over 30 years in women’s economic empowerment, citizenship and development, gender and schooling.
Wilson Aniagyei (PhD Candidate) is a Chief Superintendent of Police in Ghana and Commandant of Police Public Safety Training School, Pwalugu, Ghana. Mr Aniagyei has worked for over 30 years in crime control, justice delivery, human rights and child-friendly policing.
