Community rehabilitation centers for juvenile
delinquents established by the Project Harmony International are at risk of
closure due to lack of funding.  The
centers have been funded with donor support since 2006 until now. The organization
requested funding from state bodies to continue the centers' activities, however
when it comes to good and useful projects the answer is that the state budget
is limited.

The idea of establishing community
rehabilitation centers was of the Project Harmony International, although on
various occasions the Police officials have attributed the initiative to themselves.

Having learnt the international experience, in
2006 the organization established the first community rehabilitation center in
Yerevan. Later on the number of centers has increased up to 11, covering all
marzes in Armenia, except for Vayots Dzor marz.

The centers work with children who committed
non-grave crimes and were summoned to police. The trained staff carries out
social-psychological and pedagogical activities with children.

“Police provides with an opportunity to work
with the rehabilitation centers to those children who are subjects of being
registered in the police lists or even if there is no need to be included in
the list but there is a need for continuous attention to prevent crimes in the future.
Thus, police does not register them, and seem to treat them in a softer manner.
Otherwise they would be under police supervision for one year”, says Mariam
Martirosyan, the Head of the PH International Armenian office.

Since 2006, the centers have worked with 680 juveniles,
638 of whom successfully finished the program, whereas the other 42 cases are
either in the process or were suspended for lack of progress and the local
police continued working with them.

The rehabilitation centers were established
on the basis of human and material resources of community organizations. The
program is supported by the Armenian Police, which refers juvenile offenders
who committed a crime the first time, with permission of their parents, to the
community rehabilitation centers.

Until March 2013, the project was funded by
the US government. In 2011-2013, also the UN Children's Fund-UNICEF provided
some financial support. UNICEF will continue providing symbolic funding to 9
centers operating at the moment until the end of the year to ensure that
juveniles are provided with the services of the centers. However, after that
the fate of the centers is unclear.

Some communities support centers' activities.
For instance, the Kapan municipality provided the center with space and took
responsibility for paying the staff’s salaries. The Chambarak municipality
provided co-funding to the local rehabilitation center. However, according to
Martirosyan, this is not sufficient.

“In
course of the recent years we have been negotiating the issue of obtaining
funding with different state bodies, including ministries, marz authorities,
and municipalities. Several centers have received some support, but there is no
standard sustainable funding, such as state support provided to all community
rehabilitation centers,” says Mariam Martirosyan.

The justification is scarce finances, but
this is not justified. “In all countries there is shortage of financial means,
but there is a need to come up with some solutions. For example, the
neighboring Georgia started this program much later, seeing our success; however,
there is already a state program in place over there, relevant changes were
made in the legislation, whereas we continue to work simply on the basis of an agreement
concluded with the police. Thus, this is only a temporary instrument: when the
program ends, then the agreement will be terminated,” noted the Head of the PH
International Armenian office.

We discussed the future of the community
rehabilitation centers with a representative of the Ministry of Justice.
Nikolay Aroustamyan, Advisor to the Minister, stated that they highly appreciated
the role of the community rehabilitation centers, but the state does not have
enough financial means to fund this program.

He added that they intend to involve the
staff of this program, considering their experience, in the framework of probation
service to be introduced in 2014.

It is clear that it will take a long time to
introduce and sustain the probation service.

If the rehabilitation centers stop operating,
what will happen to the juveniles attending the centers? Most probably the
police will work with them using their traditional methods.

By Mariam Sargsyan