Young offenders who are imprisoned are housed at His Majesty's Prison in Balsum Ghut since the Virgin Islands does not have a juvenile detention centre. Photo: VINO/File

Social commentator Pastor Claude O. Skelton-Cline has called for the Virgin Islands to have a juvenile detention centre. Photo: Facebook

Speaking during his radio show, Honestly Speaking, on ZBVI 780 AM on Tuesday, July 29, 2026, Skelton-Cline said while some young boys and girls look older, they are still minors and should be treated as such. 

“They are minors mentally; they are minors in terms of brain development; they are minors spiritually; they are minors.” Some adults, he added, manipulate these young people. 

Magistrates’ hands are tied

He said that when these young people get into trouble, due to the current situation, "the magistrates don't have any options in some of these cases as to what happens to persons. Why is that? Because there is no juvenile detention centre. There is no facility that is being constructed.”

In addition to no juvenile detention centre, Skelton-Cline said there are no programmes geared at recovery, repair, restoration, and recalibration of minors who run into trouble with the law, to get them back on their feet; as well as the issues with substance abuse and mental illness. 

“The judicial system is failing them right now; not because magistrates want to fail them, but we hand-tie them because of the limited options they have for where these young people go.”

Reorder our priorities

In June 2025, a US$370,000.00 contract was awarded to Trojan Design and Development Ltd. for the design and construction of a state-of-the-art immigration detention centre. 

Skelton-Cline added that funds are going to be made available to construct an Immigration Detention Centre when the Virgin Islands is facing the lack of a Juvenile Detention Centre, calling it a “gaping hole in our system for decades now”. 

“I'm not saying you don't need an Immigration Detention Centre, but my God, there needs to be some reordering of our priorities. We need to rethink and repurpose some of what we're doing because we're losing, not just one generation; we're losing two generations of young people.”

Young offenders who are imprisoned are housed at His Majesty's Prison in Balsum Ghut.