The Child Justice Project

Assisted by the UN, the Child Justice Project was established in response to the needs and rights of children accused of crimes.  The project objective is to assist the Government and the non-governmental sector in the development of adequate responses to young offenders. This involves strengthening the capacity and  programmes for diversion and appropriate sentencing, increasing protection for young people in detention, strengthening the implementation of Child Justice legislation, raising awareness among professionals in the criminal justice system and the general public of the transformation of the child justice system, and establishing a monitoring process for child justice.  Targeted beneficiaries have been those providing services to children accused of crimes, including the personnel of the departments of Justice, Safety and Security, Social Development, Correctional Services and Education, as well as the non-governmental and community-based organisations working on these issues.  The ultimate beneficiaries will be the children whose contact with the criminal justice system is less damaging and whose development as productive and law-abiding citizens is enhanced.
Innovation:  The key innovation was to get government departments to comply jointly with the requirements of the Public Finance Management Act, ensuring  that bills should be accompanied by plans and budgets and  working closely with the relevant government departments in drawing  up norms and standards on which costs of the new system could be based.  Cost figures were generated by the departments and not by the project itself.  The project provided the framework  and technical support to assist government in coming up with the answers.  Treasury was persuaded by the project to help overcome the lack of resources for the children in the system.
Effectiveness 

The Intersectoral Committee for Child Justice identified and built the capacity of key government officials at the national level to drive child justice issues in their own departments, solving the previous lack of funding in this sector which includes the Departments of Social Development and Education.  This resulted in an integrated budget and implementation strategy for the Child Justice Bill, linked to the MTEF, which was used by departments to inform their bids to treasury.  The strategy was also handed to the Justice Portfolio Committee at Parliament. The key to success involved working closely with all the departments.
Poverty Impact

The project managed to get Government to commit to spending an additional R4, 6 million over the first three years of the implementation of the Child Justice Bill.  This will dramatically improve the services to the children in the criminal justice system, many of which are linked to poverty.  Indirect poverty alleviation is found in programmes for diversion and alternative sentencing options, which focus on skills development for children, the use of which has been enhanced through the work of the Project, doubling the number of children from 8000 per year to 16 000 per year during the life of the project.
Sustainability 

The main key here is that departments have a clear plan, accompanied by budgets that have been put to Treasury, to see the implementation of the Child Justice Bill through the first MTEF cycle of the Act, once it has been passed.  The departments now have the skills to plan and budget further into the future.
Replication

This is possible and could be applied to other inter-sectoral work.  It drew mainly on human resources that exist in government and other NGO's.  The model of inter-sectoral planning, budgeting and implementation is already being seen as a model, and the Dept of Social Development intends to follow a similar process in relation to the Children's Bill.
Partnerships
•    National Departments of Justice, Social Development, Correctional Services, Education.
•    South African Police Service
•    NGOs: Child Justice Alliance, Nicro, Community Law Centre, Restorative Justice Centre.  
•    CBOs: Diversion Service Providers and Youth-based organisations.  
•    United Nations