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panama

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Author: Harvard University. International Human Rights Clinic

Title: Preventable Tragedy in Panama—Unnecessary Deaths and Rights Violations in Juvenile Detention Centers

Summary: This report, based on investigation of the juvenile detention centers, assesses the extent to which Panama has violated the rights of juveniles in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (the “Convention”) and other related international instruments. At Panama’s previous appearance before the Committee on the Rights of the Child (“CRC”) in 2004, the CRC made observations and recommendations concerning violations in the juvenile justice system. The concluding observations included recommendations to Panama about separating detainees by age and needs, ensuring access to social services, adequately responding to cases and complaints of mistreatment by law enforcement agents, ensuring contact with families, providing regular medical examinations, and creating a recovery and social rehabilitation system. As this report documents, Panama’s rights violations in these areas have continued or increased since 2004. The report documents grave civil rights violations, especially in the fire that occurred at the Centro de Cumplimiento de Tocumen (“Tocumen”) on January 9, 2011 and resulted in the burning deaths of five juveniles. The police, guards, and detention center officials involved demonstrated disregard for the lives of these juveniles, used excessive force and failed to allow the children to exit the building once it became clear that their lives were threatened by the fire. The lack of a system to prevent incidents such as this one is unacceptable, especially given that a similar burning death had already taken place in another cell in the same detention center less than two years before the January 2011 incident, in November 2009. Panamanian officials must ensure that those responsible are investigated, prosecuted, and adequately sanctioned for this behavior, as the CRC reminded the State in its 2004 Concluding Observations. Furthermore, physical violence and continued abuse from the guards, as well as horrendous living conditions, especially in the maximum security cells, constitute cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. The juvenile detention centers also fail to ensure freedom of expression and give due weight to the voice of the juveniles in clear violation of the Convention and the CRC’s previous recommendations to Panama. Panamanian authorities must take urgent measures to respond to these grave conditions. Additionally, the report notes that the juvenile detention centers unduly restrict family visits, denying detainees the right to maintain contact with their families. The centers also have failed to provide detainees with adequate physical or mental health services, and have failed to provide specialized care for detainees with disabilities. Authorities have failed to provide juveniles adequate educational or vocational training while in detention, thus impairing their ability to assume productive roles in society upon their release. Detention center officials have also impermissibly restricted recreation and work activities for detainees. The juvenile justice system has also failed to comply with the Convention and other international instruments by creating a structure marked by harsh penalties and minimal protections. Moreover, the current conditions of confinement in the Panamanian juvenile detention system are manifestly inadequate to protect the health, welfare, and dignity of juvenile detainees. Detention centers fail to separate detainees by age and gravity of the crime, are grossly overcrowded, and continue to deny detainees access to adequate food, water, and sanitary facilities. The report concludes that Panama has disregarded its obligations under the Convention and related international instruments by failing to protect the rights of juvenile detainees and subjecting them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Building additional infrastructure, such as the new center due to open in July 2011, will not solve the severe rights violations present in the current system. Panama must reform both its laws and practice to ensure compliance with international law.

Details: Cambridge, MA: Harvard International Human Rights Clinic, 2011. 27p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 6, 2012 at: http://harvardhumanrights.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/panama-juvenile-detention-alianza-asamblea-harvard-6-20.pdf

Year: 2011

Country: Panama

Keywords: Juvenile Corrections

Shelf Number: 125861


Author: International Monetary Fund

Title: Panama: Detailed Assessment Report on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism

Summary: This assessment of the anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) regime of Panama is based on the Forty Recommendations 2003 and the Nine Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing 2001 of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and was prepared using the updated AML/CFT assessment Methodology 2004. The assessment team considered all the materials supplied by the authorities, the information obtained on-site during their mission from October 15-29, 2012, and other verifiable information subsequently provided by the authorities. During the mission, the assessment team met with officials and representatives of all relevant government agencies and the private sector. A list of the agencies and entities met is set out in Annex 1 to the detailed assessment report. This report provides a summary of the AML/CFT measures in place in Panama at the time of the mission. It describes and analyzes those measures, sets out Panama's levels of compliance with the FATF 40+9 Recommendations and provides recommendations on how certain aspects of the system could be strengthened.

Details: Washington, DC: IMF, 2014. 348p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 22, 2014 at: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2014/cr1454.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: Panama

Keywords: Financial Crimes

Shelf Number: 132120


Author: DeManche, Paul J.D.

Title: Bridging the Gap: Boundary-less bureaucrats and gang reintegration in Panama City

Summary: In a small and shrinking world there is pressure for planners and policymakers across the globe to import policy and program models that have worked in other cities and countries. Often lost in the process of transporting policies are questions about why they may have worked in their original political, economic and social context. The exploration of how and why policies are effectively implemented is every bit as important as whether the policy or program actually works. One issue of growing concern for planners is urban violence, particularly gang violence. In Latin America, a region that stands out as one of the most violent in the world, repressive police and military tactics have generally failed to solve the problem of gang violence. Recently there has been a turn toward more holistic preventative measures, which have strong support in both theory and practice. This paper explores the implementation of two gang violence prevention programs in the historic district (Casco Antiguo) of Panama City between 2004 and 2009. Specifically, it asks what explains successful implementation in these cases, and what lessons can be drawn from them. Using evidence from the cases and theories from the fields of public administration and international development, this paper argues that implementation was effective for two reasons: One, local-level government officials were given the discretion to adapt the programs to local conditions; and two, individual program "champions" pushed the programs to succeed by building trust with gang members, leveraging personal relationships across agencies and sectors, and providing companionship to program participants. Specific to Panama, these cases highlight the need to construct the political will to ensure a serious and continuous policy commitment to youth development. More broadly, the cases point to the importance of local experimentation for local problem solving, and to a more compassionate approach to addressing the problems facing youth.

Details: Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013. 79p.

Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed June 5, 2017 at: https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/81149/858401492-MIT.pdf?sequence=2

Year: 2013

Country: Panama

Keywords: Gangs

Shelf Number: 145910


Author: Berk-Seligson, Susan

Title: Impact Evaluation: Panama Country Report

Summary: Central America, especially Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, are among the most criminally violent nations in the world. The USAID Missions (specifically, the Democracy and Governance (DG) and other offices within the Missions) in five Central American countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama) have administered and overseen the execution of the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) interventions-a set of programs with the objective of reducing crime rates and improving security in Central America by strengthening community capacity to combat crimes and creating educational and employment opportunities for at-risk youth. USAID/Washington, via its Cooperative Agreement with the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) at Vanderbilt University, asked LAPOP to design and carry out an impact evaluation of the CARSI interventions in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama, as part of a broader effort to establish the effectiveness of USAID democracy and governance interventions through scientifically rigorous studies such as those recommended in the comprehensive study by the National Academy of Sciences (National Research Council 2008). LAPOP has had more than 20 years of experience in carrying out policy-relevant surveys in Latin America, having conducted hundreds of country-based surveys, including many specialized studies designed to evaluate programs. The CARSI approach has been focused on community -based violence prevention, of which the CARSI program in Panama that is the subject of this report, is an example. Two factors, however, made the CARSI impact evaluation LAPOP conducted in Panama different from the impact evaluations carried out elsewhere in Central America. First, unlike in the "northern triangle" countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the level of crime in Panama is not especially high for the Latin American region. Therefore, since the starting base for crime is so much lower in Panama than in the other countries included in this impact evaluation, crime rates there have far less to fall, and impact will, of necessity, be lower. Second, the sample size of communities for the quantitative data obtained from the treated Panamanian communities is too small to justify treating the Panama sample as adequate for country-level analysis. In the other countries covered by the LAPOP CARSI impact evaluation, the minimal sample size of communities was met or exceeded, and therefore justified a country-level analysis of the quantitative data, and for each of those countries, such a report was written and is available on-line at www.LAPOPsurveys.org. In the case of Panama, the quantitative data obtained there have been added to the Central Americawide pooled data base and are reported on only in the regional report of the LAPOP impact evaluation. Third, program implementation lagged in Panama, and in some of the treatment communities the central treaments had not been applied by the end of the impact evaluation surveys. For this reason alone, measurement of impact in those communities would not have meaning. Finally, a number of the key elements of the community-based violence prevention programs initiated by CARSI in the other countries in which this evaluation has taken place were already in place by the time the baseline data were collected, put there by the govnment of Panama and cooperating agencies and NGOs. Therefore, a baseline of "untreated" communities was less meaningful than in the other countries.

Details: Nashville, TN: The Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), Vanderbilt University , 2014. 241p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 6, 2017 at: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/carsi/CARSI_Panama_v3_FinalV_W_02.17.16.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: Panama

Keywords: At-risk Youth

Shelf Number: 147038