Children are lifeâs precious gifts, to be treasured and carefully nurtured: âThey are persons who are going to carry on what you have started. They are going to sit where you are sitting and when you are gone, attend to those things you think are important. The fate of humanity is in their handsâ (Abraham Lincoln). Subsequently, every nation and every family wants their children to be prepared for the future. And no parent or society wishes them to be fearful, shy, inconsiderate or objectionable; they want them to be happy, secure and reach their full potential. In the process of their growth, however, many children acquire undesirable characteristics and fail to achieve a sense of security and an attitude of respect for either themselves or others. In many cases, the parents love them and try to provide their best for their growth and development. Paradoxically enough, however, the more they are cared for, the more suffering and despair are given by them (Musa, 2010). Moreover, due to the rapid pace of development of science and technology, enormous changes are occurring in every sphere of society, particularly in relation to the family as an institution. Consequently, regardless of their gender, social origin and country of residence, children are subject not only to individual risks but also new individual opportunitiesâof which some are beneficial and some potentially harmful. Children often take advantage of illegal opportunities and commit offences against others or endanger their lives by becoming addicts to unhealthy habits (Crisan, 2005).
Juvenile delinquency is, therefore, a fact and a growing concern both nationally and globally. Of late, the media has been reporting about an increased engagement in the sphere of delinquency of children. From minor acts of abuse, fights and theft, they are now involved in serious offences like rape, armed robbery and murder, suggesting that there is something radically wrong with societal dynamics. The rate of such acts by children destroying their childhood has made it a subject of heated debate in different fields such as psychology, sociology, law and medicine and it has been referred to differently by various fields. Such individuals may be labelled as âchildren with deviation of conductâ (medical description), ânon-adapted youngâ (sociological term), âproblem childrenâ (psycho-educational classification) and âinfant delinquentsâ (juridical term).
The term Juvenile delinquency is derived from two Latin words: âiuvenilisâ (meaning âyoungâ) and âdelinquentiaâ (meaning âfault, crimeâ). Yet this concept is understood and explained differently by various authors. Sadler (1992) states that some people regard that any boy or girl as delinquent who wears tight jeans, leather jackets or unusual clothes, has a strange haircut or uses a particular type of street slang. Coleman (1996), on the other hand, suggested that juvenile delinquents are boys or girls who have shown a pattern of breaking the law, whether or not they have come to trial. He pointed out accurately that the term delinquent is inappropriate to describe a person who, for one reason or another, breaks a rule only once and unintentionally. According to Reckless (1956), it applies to the âviolation of criminal code and/or pursuit of certain patterns of behaviour disapproved of children and young adolescents.â Thus, by and large juvenile delinquency refers to a large variety of disapproved behaviour carried out by teenagers and adolescents and for which some kind of punishment or corrective measure is justified in the public interest. Mitterauer (1993), in the light of the above view, stated that some acts considered as offences for juveniles are not classified as offences if committed by adults. Such acts are status offence and include truancy from schools, drinking alcohol, gambling.
In India, every person below the age of 18 is classified as a child. The age of criminality, however, starts from the childâs seventh year, one of the lowest ages in the world. Those below this age even if they commit an offence and are covered legally by the term delinquency are not labelled as delinquents; rather, they are labelled as problem children because it is felt that at this stage they are not sufficiently mature to distinguish between legal and illegal acts and between right and wrong. An offence or crime should be viewed not merely as an act of breaching the laws of the state; it is also the violation of the sanctity of one human being by another and can be seen as a destruction of the social fabric (UNICEF, 2003). Thus, both age and behavioural infractions prohibited in the statutes are important aspects of the concept of juvenile delinquency.
The increase in juvenile delinquency at the global level, as recorded in official and unofficial sources, has rung alarm bells in the society, evoking the conscience of the international community to address the issue with the necessary urgency as they do not presumably have the same intent as that of an adult. Consequently, a series of discussions, deliberations and debates paved the way for the declaration of several international standards that contain provisions on alternatives to the deprivation of liberty in the field of juvenile justice. There are at least 15 different international human rights instruments and related guidelines, dating from 1955 to 2009, containing a staggering total of 77 articles, rules, guidelines or provisions which support diversion and alternatives for children who are in conflict with the law. Of these, 77 articles and provisions: ten are legally binding on states which have ratified the relevant instruments [of which four are from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) âArticles 37(b), 40.1, 40.3 (b) and 40.2 (iv).
According to Articles 37 and 40 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), children in conflict with the law have the right to treatment that promotes their sense of dignity and worth, takes into account their age and aims to reintegrate them into society. In addition, placing children in conflict with the law in a closed facility should be a measure of last resort, to be avoided whenever possible. This convention prohibits the imposition of the death penalty and sentences of life imprisonment for offences committed by persons under the age of 18. Similarly, the General Comment Number 10 (GC10) on âChildrenâs Rights in Juvenile Justiceâ, the 1990 United Nations Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency (âThe Riyadh Guidelinesâ), the 1990 United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty (âThe Havana Rulesâ) and the UN Guidelines for Action on Children in the Criminal Justice System promote the use of alternatives to the deprivation of liberty and emphasize that detention of children who are alleged as, accused of or recognized as having infringed the law should be directed towards a restorative purpose and deprivation should always be a measure of last resort (Meuwese, 2003).
In line with international standards, most State parties have recognized that the child is to be âtreatedâ and rehabilitated and that the procedure and the disposition are, therefore, to be âclinicalâ rather than âpunitiveâ. In the case of a child, the apparent rigidities, technicalities and harshness in both substantiative and procedural law are to be considered extraneous to his treatment. Accordingly, most of the nations have modified their justice systems to guarantee the rights of children as set forth in the international instruments and guidelines. India, as a signatory to most of the aforementioned international instruments, has obligated itself to work towards ensuring all the rights enshrined therein to all its children. In tune with this approach, the nation has formulated and enacted a specific piece of exclusive legislationâthe Juvenile Justice Act in 2000 and later amended in 2006âto treat children in need of care and protection and children in conflict with the law. This Act, which forms the central legislation for children in India, advocates strongly for the importance of the restoration and rehabilitation of the so-called Children in Conflict with Law (CCL). This presumes that putting children behind bars and separating them from their families and communities has a seriously damaging impact on their physical, mental and social development.
Most of these child offenders require help from the social welfare system rather than the juvenile justice system. Nevertheless, some require being sent to detention centres such as observation homes, special homes and after-care homes, where they can be helped to become good citizens. However, this approach should only be adopted as the last resort. In India, crimes are usually classified into crimes under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and crimes under the Special and Local Laws (SLL). The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is the only available national resource to understand the magnitude of juvenile delinquency in India. According to the NCRB report of 2014, the number of total crimes by juveniles (IPC + SLL) has increased from 43,506 in 2013 to 48,230 in 2014, showing an overall increase of 10.9%. While the IPC crimes by juveniles recorded a 5.7% increase in 2014 over the previous year, it was 21.8% in SLL crimes during the same period. Crimes committed by children under the Indian Penal Code increased, with a reported registration of 33,526 cases in 2014 (NCRB, 2014) compared with 31,725 in 2013. Nevertheless, in 2013 and 2014 the share of IPC crimes by children to total IPC crimes remained constant at 1.2%. Adolescent crimes under the SLL, on the other hand, increased from 4136 in 2013 to 5039 in 2014 (ibid.).
There are substantial gender differences in respect of the number of crimes committed by children in India. In 2014, of the 48,320 children apprehended, 46,638 were boys and 1,592 were girls, meaning that girls accounted for just 3.3% of the total number of children apprehended in India in 2014 (ibid.). The official statistics on juvenile delinquency suggest a relatively low level in a developing country like India, where almost 42% of its population are below 18 years of age. The National Crime Records Bureau reports, however, indicate a marginal increase in offences by children. Yet media reports highlight a spurt in the commission of crimes/offences by juveniles. However, the increasing rate of apprehension does not necessarily mean that crime had grown as the apprehension rate can be influenced by a variety of factors: changes in policy, in police practices, the growth of the child population and in the number of offenders arrested per offence. Moreover, NCRB reports are found to be based on the First Information Report (FIR) registered, which is only at an allegation stage and that children are often found to be innocent of the offences.
The involvement of children in offences seems to have serious socio-economic implications. Approximately 52.9% of children in conflict with law had either never attended school or had education only up to the primary level. Moreover, a large proportion of children (55.6%) belong to poor families (those with an annual income up to Rs. 25,000/; NCRB, 2014). Most of these children, whether they be petty offenders or serious offenders, are children who face challenges in terms of their care and protection and in their relationships with their families, communities and society. Their lives, choices and opportunities are affected to a great extent by the communities being increasingly fragmented through urbanization, chronic poverty, social and interpersonal violence and inc...