Medellín, Colombia – Colombia’s second largest city, Medellín, has come a long way since the early 1990s when it was dubbed the world’s murder capital.
A combination of security operations, agreements with armed groups, and investment into the most vulnerable communities aimed to help steer the city’s youth away from gangs and violence. Homicide rates have since sunk from 380 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1991, to 24.1 per 100,000 in 2024, the lowest in over 55 years, according to the government of the state of Antioquia, where Medellín is the capital.
The prevalence of youth offenders has also dropped since the days when the Medellín Cartel would recruit young hitmen from the slums on the city’s hillsides. According to data shared with Latin America Reports by the Colombian National Police, the total number of youth offenders in Colombia dropped from 13,527 in 2019 to 7,509 in 2024 — with the most prevalent crimes including drugs manufacturing and possession, theft, and firearms possession.
One challenge facing the Colombian government and organizations that work to prevent youth crime is recidivism, the tendency of convicted youth to reoffend.
While figures on youth recidivism in Colombia are scarce, Colombia’s Ministry of Justice reported in 2019 that 7.9% of convicted inmates re-enter the system within one year of their release. This figure rises to 13% for two years, 16.6% for three years, 19.2% for four years, and 21% for five years.
To help combat recidivism amongst Colombia’s youth, organizations around the country employ restorative justice practices. One such program operating in Medellín is the La Confraternidad Carcelaria de Colombia (Prison Fellowship Colombia), a religious-based NGO affiliated with Prison Fellowship International.
Operating in Colombia since 1980, the organization supports people that have been deprived of liberty as well as their families and their victims through a focus on restorative justice.
Latin America Reports spoke to Lina Hernandez Nassif, the Coordinator of the Juvenile Restorative Justice program at Prison Fellowship Colombia, to learn more about the program’s tactics and impact.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity:
Latin America Reports: Could you tell me about how Prison Fellowship Colombia started and why?
Lina Hernandez Nassif: This year the organization is celebrating 45 years of activity in Colombia. It was not a Colombian initiative, but part of Prison Fellowship International (PFI), an NGO that is an advisor for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
The Prison Fellowship came to Colombia in 1980 to open a branch here to attend to prisoners. In 1980, I understand that some Canadians came, encouraged by Charles (Chuck) Colson, who was a politician from the United States, and the founder of PFI.
Thanks to funding from the United States, we were able to open operations here. However, it wasn’t until the 1990s that the Confraternidad Carcelaria de Colombia had a much bigger boost and we began to have much more influence in the penitentiaries; and in the 2000s we had exponential growth through the creation of different programmes for the prison population.
LAR: In the programme you direct, Restorative Juvenile Justice, what are the activities that have the most positive effects for the offenders?
LHN: We try to have a differentiated process for victims and offenders. When a minor commits a crime in Colombia, that person enters a system that is very flexible and is very beneficial for them, because it doesn’t give them a judicial record. Unlike adults who have more difficulties when it comes to receiving benefits for the programme due to their records.
Within the programme we develop an agenda where the adolescents see a series of topics related to restorative justice; such as crime; differentiation between conflict and crime; how to take responsibility; and we give them the necessary tools to repair the damage.
So, if it is a question of benefits for the kids, they have them from the beginning, because one of the possibilities when participating in a programme like ours is the reduction of their sanction. If there is a reduction of the sanction, there is motivation to participate.
So it’s a win-win situation. The system wins, the adolescent wins, and so does the organization.
LAR: Is the Restorative Juvenile Justice programme run on a voluntary basis? How do the children you work with come to the programme?
LHN: It’s complicated because we are dealing with minors. They are minors who often don’t know how to make decisions, and they make decisions based on impulse.
We go to the care units where they are detained or sanctioned and hold meetings, explaining the programme [to officials]. We approach the directors and they tell us which groups we can work with and we present the programme to those adolescents.
So, in each presentation there are approximately 25 children. Then we explain the programme and the objective with the victims, and ask who wants to participate? Then when we ask them, if they raise their hands, they do it.
But we have also had cases where judges and prosecutors refer kids to us. When the children are referred to us by a public official, whether that be a judge, a public defender or a prosecutor, the participation in the programme is compulsory.
So there are two ways, the adolescent does not necessarily come voluntarily through an official of the system, or they participate voluntarily when we contact them in the detention centers.
When a judge sends an adolescent, generally the adolescent does not want to participate. But after they have been in the programme for two or three months, they take on what they have learnt and after the programme, we see that they have benefited. So far we have had very positive results.
LAR: Prison Fellowship International is an organization based on religious morals. Is it difficult to instil this faith or is it kept as a separate ideology?
LHN: The PFI is an organization based on Protestant Christian foundations. Here in Colombia we have done the same thing, the organization continues to have the same basis and the same religious foundation.
However, in the programme we don’t do any kind of proselytising, we don’t make religious appeals or promote any kind of religious practice. We stay away from that because we don’t want restorative justice to be related to the church.
They are two things that are better separated and distances from each other. So while the organization has a Christian base, this programme is not Christian at all.
LAR: Do you have specific success stories?
LHN: Yes, of course, we have many success stories.
We have been operating in Colombia for six years now, but specifically here in the city of Medellín, and the results have been extremely positive. Success stories, as many as you want.
However, we have had cases where adolescents have taken on the knowledge, they identify with restorative justice, they like it, but in the long run the result, because there is no victim participation, the process ends up being a bit incomplete. Incomplete because there was no victim who participated in a specific process.
LAR: Talking towards the future, what plans do you have to continue developing the project? How will you achieve this?
LHN: Well, we have been receiving funding from the government for almost two or three years, but only to implement the programme in short periods of time, four to five months.
Last year, one of the projections we had as a programme, which I came up with, was the promotion of productive projects for adolescents. So, what is happening is that in the units where the adolescents are sentenced, they receive training. For example, training in carpentry or ironwork, blacksmithing or fashion. What we do is finance their own business or micro-enterprise, so that they can generate resources and get out of criminal life.
At the moment we are aiming to strengthen that, because last year we were able to help about 15 children and to link three of them to companies. It’s a very good number for a pilot project, so the idea this year is to strengthen it, to have more children linked to companies.
One aim is to strengthen relations with the business sector, so that they understand that criminal life also depends a lot on access to decent jobs and employment.
The fewer opportunities an adolescent has to join a company or to work, to generate his or her own income, the more likely he or she is to return to crime.
Our team is working to strengthen our relationships with entrepreneurs, also to receive donations, to support the children in their enterprises and, on the other hand, we are planning to open up to more departments and cities in the country as we are already very strong in Medellín.
We would like to train and support the governors’ offices, the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, and other care units throughout the country, because there is a huge gap in work done for restorative justice.
Although the adolescent system says that restorative justice is transversal, what we have observed is that there is a lot of ignorance about what restorative justice is. Many directors and teachers in the care units don’t know the term.
Featured image description: Art workshop from programme. Credit: Lina Hernandez Nassif
