Law Degree from the Diego Portales University, Post-graduate Degree in Criminal Justice and Adversarial System from the Diego Portales University, Master in Criminal Law and Criminal Sciences from the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso. He was a counsel for Judicial Assistance Corporation of San Miguel and has worked in law firms. From 2000 to 2010, he worked as Deputy Attorney General in the cities of Lautaro and Viña del Mar. In this area, he has been invited to participate in various activities abroad in the framework of cooperation with foreign prosecutors. He has been involved in teaching activities, such as a monitor of training and workshop teacher in a course on Litigation at the University of the Andes. Since December 2010 he has taken over as the Director of the National Youth Service of Chile.

Could you give us a brief description of the main activities and objectives of the National Youth Service of Chile (SENAME)?

The National Youth Service of Chile is a public, centralized, auxiliary service of the judicial system and dependent on the Ministry of Justice.

Its mission is 'to contribute to the restoration of the rights of vulnerable children and teenagers as well as to the empowerment and the social reintegration of juvenile offenders, through quality services granted by means of a network of programs executed directly or by bodies’ associates of the Service'.

During these last six years, in what way did the “Law 20.084 of Penal responsibility of teenagers” (RPA) affect the all-round development of minors in conflict with the law in Chile? What are the perceptible improvements since its approval?

Since the approval of the Law RPA, it is possible to perceive a series of improvements focused on the complete development of juveniles in conflict with the law, among which we can underline:

• The establishment of a system of penal responsibility for teenagers different from the penal system for adults, whom the Law RPA arranges and regulates;
• The transition of the guardian system towards a system based on the objective of the rights, which recognizes the teenager as a subject of rights;
• The elimination of the 'discernment' and the introduction of the concept of empowerment;
• The establishment of an age bracket between 14 and 18 years;
• The imposition of an environment of rights and guarantees for the teenager in conflict with the law;
• The gratitude/recognition of the teenager as being anybody in a special stage of development;
• The establishment of a catalog of penalties;
• The use of deprivation of liberty as a punishment of last resort, by privileging penalties in a free environment;
• The model of intervention with every teenager focuses on a socio educational objective, directed to empowerment and social reintegration.

In what resources does SENAME apply the principles of socialization and education to young people in social trouble? What the modifications and evolution of the resources and the detention centre are for young people in situation of deprivation of liberty in Chile?

According to Law N 20.084 and its regulation, it is important to indicate that deprivation of liberty for juvenile offenders has to be carried out in a specialized centre, directed at the fulfillment of the objectives set out in the law – which are outlined in Article 20 – in a way that the punishment is part of a wider socio-educational intervention and aimed at full social reintegration.

This means that the priority is given to the character responsibility-oriented, repair and enabling of the penal intervention on its punitive component, by assuming the challenge to develop a relevant offer with regard to the particular necessities of the teenagers, an offer which favors social reintegration and the reduction of the offending. It implies that the proposal of intervention for the young people - in the context of the fulfillment of a punishment in a Closed Regime Center (CRC) - considers the stage of development which they are in and, at the same time, the causes and circumstances which brought them to be involved in criminal acts. In this context, it is a commitment of the SENAME to guarantee the continuity of the basic, medium and specialized education of teenagers, as well as their integration into programs of rescolarisation, in the necessary case, and from a preparation for active life and personal fulfillment.

In this context, the offered programme can be seen as a multimodal and eco-systematic approach. Multimodal, to embrace the set of factors connected to the commission of offences, as well as the pro social attitudes and behaviour; and eco-systematic, because the strategies of intervention have to understand the subject as part of its family and community environment. In this direction, we support that the programs require to be based on the individual, on the family and on the community to approach in an effective way the risk factors of second offense and to strengthen the capacity of response and the ability to withdraw of the teenager. In this context, the idea is to organize the programme in the center, in such a way as to respond to the specific necessities of teenagers, by considering the stage of the development in which they are, through educational programs, spare time and recreation, family and social integration, a training for work, criminal conduct, and a therapeutic intervention in mental health and drugs.

With regards to the teenagers' temporary internment as the precautionary measure, the character of empowerment, repair and enabling of the penal intervention is prioritized on its punitive component, by assuming the challenge to develop a relevant approach in the face of the particular needs of juveniles, which realizes the impacts that turn the experience of deprivation of liberty to the advantage of the developmental process of teenagers and their social integration; and to end, which develops an intervention programme with a high level of capacity to respond to the needs of juveniles, in particular in the dimensions of mental, educational health and training for work.

The experience of deprivation of liberty during the temporary internment has its own complexity to be situated in a moment by the judicial process where there is no initial certainty in term of duration, and it could affect the levels of anxiety of the teenagers being given the uncertainty which it generates. Furthermore, the entrance to a privative system of freedom has impacts from the point of view of the process of development of the teenager, because it increases the levels of psychosocial vulnerability and, furthermore, can constitute a destabilizing factor for mental health.

Although once the teenager indicted limits the possibility of generating an intervention which aims towards objectives of empowerment prior to the offence and prevention of the second offense, it emerges from it necessary that the team takes actions which aim to generate the empowerment of the teenager of himself, as to generate the supports of services which minimize the negative impact of the deprivation of liberty in its development. Thus, the idea is based on the fact that the team develops a strategic intervention in a coherent and relevant way with regard to the necessities of every teenager in this context.

As mentioned before, the intervention approach will have two general characteristic: it must be multimodal and eco-systematic.

What trend or effects are observed in the data and the statistics referring to the second offense of minors after the application of the present penal law? In what measure are applied the restoratives or alternatives measures to the ruling of the young person?

SENAME has at this date statistical data on recidivism, but we find in the course of investigation a study on the second offense: 'I study models and the measure of the second offense of teenagers and young people of the penal law', at the request of the center of Studies in the City Safety (CESC), of the Institute of the Business Public of the University of Chile. This study will allow establishing a basic line of the rates of second offense which adds up the system of juvenile justice. As by-product of this study we hope to have a model of measure of the second offense in the future.

With regards to the application of remedial measures we can notice that although our line of action is not the remedial justice, reconstructive practices are however applied through the program of repair of the damage and the service to the advantage of the community.

The penalty of Service in the Profit to the Community and Repair of the Damage corresponds to one of the punishments executed by the National Youth Service the most used since the Law of Penal responsibility of the Teenagers came into effect. It is possible to appreciate it in the table N°1, where we show that this measure corresponds to 30, 34 % of the total of the period 2008 -2011.

Such as shown in the graph n°1, this proportion showed a certain stability in the time, being more than 79, 2 % of actual fulfillment of the cases taken out during the year 2011.

Which projects of regional exchanges develop and/or in which participates the SENAME and with which purposes?

In the international domain, in the Juvenile Justice, the National Youth Service, we can underline the following projects:

1. Development of the Project ' Strengthening of the technical and administrative management of the SENAME and its Network of Accredited Associate Bodies, for teenagers' social integration accused and/or punished in frame of the Law of Penal responsibility of the Teenagers (Law N 20.084) ', with financing of the GTZ. This project had as an objective to substantively improve the processes of management in the implementation of the Law of Penal responsibility of the Teenagers.

2. Currently developed between SENAME and the Sub-secretarial department of Complete Attention on the Private persons of freedom (Direction of Centers for Juvenile Offenders), dependent on the Ministry of Justice, on Human Rights and on Cults of the Equator, there is a project of cooperation with the objective to deliver a technical support on behalf of the SENAME to the Direction of Centers for Teenager Offenders, for the implementation of a system to execute socio-educational measures not privative of freedom in this country. This project is financed by the Agency of International Cooperation of Chile (AGCI).

3. Finally, and within the framework of what is established in the Joint committee of Cooperation between Chile and Costa Rica realized in December, 2011, finds itself in a study the possibility of receiving a technical assistance of the mentioned countries in the Models of Management and Administration Juvenile Justice.

As national director of the SENAME, what are your objectives concerning on the one hand your organization and, on the other hand, the improvements of Juvenile in Chile?

Between the various objectives that this administration has set, we can underline:

• The modernization of the model of management of the service in Juvenile justice, by realizing a systematic work with the participants to improve the quality and the opportunity of the offered service;
• The conception/ design and the development of technical orientations with indicators which allow to measure the results and to improve the quality of the intervention and the possible social reintegration of the young people;
• The specialization of the state employees in Juvenile justice;
• The realization of permanent studies in the theme to improve the quality of attention;
• The improvements of the conditions of habitability in the privative centers of freedom.
• Contribute to the process of devolution towards regional offices.