Cape Town — The capacity of the state to deliver probation services to children in trouble with the law came close to derailing the passage of the critically awaited Child Justice Bill through Parliament yesterday.

Frustrated members of Parliament's justice committee yesterday demanded that state officials from correctional services, justice, s afety and security and social development define how many children would need to be assessed by probation officers before their first appearance in court. They said they needed to understand exactly what was happening in order to make rational decisions in the legislation.

At issue is the matter of diversion. The primary aim of the bill is to keep children out of the criminal justice system and SA's prisons if it is at all possible, and for this reason they should be professionally assessed within 48 hours of arrest.

The bill in its present form says that children accused of very serious crimes should not be assessed but should directly enter the system.

The committee is under pressure from nongovernmental organisations that have called for all children in conflict with the law to be assessed. Then, on the basis of the assessment and the severity of the crime, a decision on diversion can be made during the first court appearance.

The big problem that emerged yesterday was that state departments could not agree on how many children were involved. MPs heard a report from Parliament's research unit that about 11000 children were arrested in SA each month.

Of these, between 3000 and 4000 eventually appear in court and about 1900 are eventually diverted away from the criminal justice system.

The 5000 who never appear in court are either released without charge by the police, are found to have lied about their age and are processed as adults, or the cases are withdrawn.

MPs wanted to know if all 11000 children were assessed by probation officers or if only the 4000 who went to court were assessed. The state departments were unable to answer.

The problem is that if the bill is changed to insist on assessment for all children, the state might not have the capacity to do the assessments.

African Christian Democratic Party MP Steve Swart said assessing all the children would put an intolerable extra burden on the state to deliver services.