Kinshasa, June 30th, 2026 (CPA). – The detention of children in closed facilities remains the most frequently applied reflexive response to minors in conflict with the law in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to a study titled “Perceptions and Realities of the Detention of Children in Conflict with the Law in Closed Facilities: Social and Institutional Challenges in Kinshasa,” CPA has learned on Tuesday from the author.
“ The study reveals that, in the face of generalized institutional shortcomings (a lack of child care and education facilities (EGEE)) and the financial stranglehold on open-care facilities (NGOs), the detention in closed facilities (Makala Prison or so-called “amigos” cells) has become the default and reflexive response in the juvenile justice generalized system ,” has declared Lawyer Parfait Kivumu, the author. And he added: “To explore the perceptions and reasoning of frontline actors—such as judges, police officers, lawyers, court clerks, and social workers—our research is relied on methodological triangulation, notably through non-directive interviews, direct observation, and documentary analysis.” He has specified that, far from its educational and therapeutic purpose as a last resort, placement in secure institutions is reinterpreted by those involved as a tool for managing urban insecurity (phenomena Kuluna and Shegues), a refuge from vigilante justice, a dumping ground for
disadvantaged families in the throes of socio-economic collapse, or even a lever for procedural negotiation. The analysis, he has explained, highlights the paradoxes of a system in which some children in conflict with the law prefer the prison environment to the precariousness of life on the streets in order to meet their basic needs, whilst demonstrating, through the lens of critical criminology, how incarceration creates a cycle of delinquency.
Furthermore, marked by institutional trauma, criminal influence and destructive social labelling (witch child, cynical criminal), the child after leaving care undergoes a failed reintegration which, driven by a survival instinct, condemns him or her to the vicious circle of reoffending. This article, he has said, has just been published today in the journal Ziglobitha in Ivory Coast, a journal of Arts, Linguistics and Civilisations, supported by a high-level international and multidisciplinary scientific committee. The study of Mr Kivumu, a Master’s student at the School of Criminology at the University of Kinshasa (Unikin), adopts a constructivist and interpretative approach. It analyses the vast and critical gap between the protective aims of Congolese legislation on child protection and the actual practices of those working in the juvenile justice system in Kinshasa. According to the author, who is also director of the Bureau for Research into Children’s Rights (Brede), an organisation based in Kinshasa in DRC, this is a scholarly journal indexed in several academic databases.