In practice, every police authority has to invent a procedure of its own. Children are whatever age they claim to be, unless their growth and appearance indicates otherwise. The youngest ones are usually registered one or two years older than they claim to be, while adolescents are classified often as adults. There were also cases of minors deliberately trying to be registered as adults, believing this will help them to avoid detention. /RQJEHIRUHGHWHQWLRQWKHLQLWLDO³UHFHSWLRQ´WKHVHFKLldren should have had, would have included child-friendly information and social and psychological support, by experienced child care professionals. Special assessment of needs and thus care arrangements for each child separately should have followed, always as indicated by the FKLOG¶VEHVWLQWHUHVWDQG after his /her views are heard. None of the above seems to follow from the way children are actually treated by authorities, neither from the institution of Temporal Guardianship (at least not from the way it functions so far). Children are ³SHQGLQJ UHIHUUDOV´, unwanted responsibility, and there is no time for any particular or special preoccupation with each one of them. Child Care providing services are but a huge gap which cannot be filled ± considering the number of children in need - by Guardianship as it currently takes place and by the limited capacity of 1*2¶V IV. Consequences Problematic provisions and legal gaps, lack of care, insufficient reception centres and compulsory detenWLRQLQLQKXPDQFRQGLWLRQVDUHWKHFKLOGUHQ¶VUHDOLW\LQWKHUHJLRQ, with incalculable short and long-term consequences on their lives and development. The conditions and realities described above hinder their future prospects for something better. Children are driven to risk-taking behaviors and life decisions which, although they shouldn't be left to make on their own, they are in fact forced into. The following findings 24