50 Large-scale interventions will be needed to get the juveniles who were inmates at the Center fully reincorporated into society. These children need psychological care to restore a modicum of self-esteem, in order to rebuild their personalities. They also need medical treatment for the after-effects of the fires at the Center. They also need the kind of care that will enable them to go to school or learn a trade, so that they can be fully reincorporated into society. In short, they require comprehensive care, provided by an interdisciplinary team composed of professionals of various kinds, able to deal with the problems that these children are now having. The shift away from a system of control by force, exercised by guards, to a model that uses educators to reshape the personality, is a first step toward improving the system. Sentences that are alternatives to deprivation of liberty would be one way to avoid the trauma. When a juvenile is deprived of his liberty, “his conduct is not changed and he does not learn the difference between right and wrong.” j) Expert opinion of Luis Emilio Escobar Faella, former Attorney General of Paraguay The witness is a lawyer and served in the judicial branch of government for 25 years. He was Paraguay’s Attorney General for five years. The new criminal justice system affords equal access to the accused and to the victim. Under the new system, the Public Ministry is in charge of criminal investigations, as established in the 1992 Constitution. The new criminal justice system also establishes a criminal court judge and a separate sentencing court that is a collegiate body versed in the law. In this new criminal justice system, the fact that a crime is committed by a juvenile becomes a “mitigating circumstance.” The new Code of Criminal Procedure established a special proceeding for juveniles, which was to remain in effect until such time as the child and adolescent code was adopted. We now have that code. The new Child and Adolescent Code also introduced such concepts as legal counsel on approval, review of behavior-related measures and, most importantly, a drastic reduction in the period of time that a child could be sentenced to serve in prison. Under the new Child and Adolescent Code, the maximum period of confinement to which a child can be sentenced is eight years. Both the Penal Code and the Child and Adolescent Code make provision, in many cases, for fines in lieu of deprivation of liberty. The Penal Code introduces the concept of fines based on number of days, which takes into account the convicted person’s ability to pay the fine. The Child and Adolescent Code established a method that has to do with the adolescent’s actual capacity to pay the fines. However, these reforms have not been implemented in practice. The old provisions and the current provisions make it possible for the system to be “completely undermined” in practice. This is particularly true in the case of juveniles, where every rule has been violated. The new Penal Code embodies modern doctrines, emphasizing the human being as the bearer of all rights and the penal system as the ultima ratio. Under the new penal system, courts are much more inclined to order alternative measures, sometimes at the prosecutor’s request, so that preventive imprisonment does not become –as it was under the old system- punishment before conviction.