JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
Meaning of Juvenile Delinquency
India is the second largest population in the world; we read or hear every day from the press about committing a crime by juveniles. School shootings, using or selling drugs, and committing serious crimes, most are law-abiding kids who are sometimes enticed into committing law violations but who will mature out of illegalities before they reach eighteen.
Thus, delinquency is a kind of abnormality. When an individual deviates from the course of everyday social life, his behavior is called “delinquency.” In generic terms, juvenile delinquency is deviant child behaviour. When a young person gets involved in a criminal act, we call him a juvenile and juvenile crime delinquency. Juvenile delinquency could mean any type of behaviour by those socially defined as juveniles that violate the norms (standards of proper behaviour) set by the controlling group.
Etymologically, the term delinquency has been derived from the Latin word ‘delinquer,’ which means ‘to omit.’ The Romans used the term to refer to the failure of a person to perform the assigned task or duty. Delinquency is a form of behaviour or rather misbehaviour or deviation from the generally accepted norms of conduct in society. It refers to a large variety of disapproved behaviours of children and adolescents that society does not approve of and for which some kind of admonishment, punishment, or corrective measure is justified.
The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 has replaced and came up with the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, which came into force on 15 January 2016. Under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, which provides criminal responsibility, the age varies from 14 to 18 years under different laws and different Indian states. Prior to the JJ Act of 2015, the age bar for juveniles was 18 years (Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, 2006, 2012). The age of the juvenile under the Indian legislation has taken variation in temporal and spatial perspectives.
Thus, it also attracts a minimum of 7 years of imprisonment. Also, no child under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 can be awarded a Death Penalty and Life Imprisonment. Through this, it aims to focus and change the law related to Juvenile i.e., children who are supposed and found to be in conflict with the law and children in need of Care and Protection by fulfilling their necessities through proper care and nourishment, protection, treatment, social integration, training and also by adopting a child-friendly approach.
There are several thousand juvenile delinquents in Indian Jails at present. Their condition is far from satisfactory, and few are rehabilitated. Over 1000 juvenile delinquents in India share prisons with adult criminals who harass and sodomize them. Their largest number is in West Bengal, closely followed by Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, and Gujarat.
Definition of Juvenile Delinquency
Cyril Burt defines a delinquency as occurring in a child “When his antisocial tendencies appear so grave that he becomes or ought to become the subject of official action.”
Friedlander says, “Delinquency is a juvenile misconduct that might be dealt with under the law.”
William H. Sheldon regards delinquency “as behaviour disappointing beyond reasonable expectations.”
C. B. Mamoria writes, “the phrase ‘juvenile delinquency’ may be loosely used to cover any kind of deviant behavior of children which violates normative rules, understanding or expectation of social system.”
K. L. Sharma defined it as, “A delinquent child is one who deserts his home, who is habitually disobedient or is beyond the control of his parents who violates the law of the land, or who does not abide by the rules which he is required to follow.”
According to Coleman (1981), Delinquency refers to “The behaviour of youths under the age of 18 years which is not acceptable to the society and is generally regarded as calling for some kind of admonishment, punishment or corrective actions.”
According to the Pennsylvania Juvenile Court Act, juvenile delinquency is defined as “A delinquent child is one who violated any laws of the common wealth ordinance of a city, a child who by reason of being way ward or habitually disobedient, is uncontrolled by his parent, guardian, custodian or legal representative, a child who is habitually truant from school or home or a child who habitually so deports himself as to injure or endanger the morals or health of himself or others.”
Causes of Juvenile Delinquency
The increasingly high rates of juvenile delinquency are a great problem in modern society. The causes of juvenile delinquency have been divided into two classes internal and social. Internal factors include physical and psychological factors, while external factors consist of social elements. The causes of juvenile delinquency will be divided into three classes for convenient study: social causes, psychological causes, and economic causes. The leading causes of this problem are as follows –
Social Causes:
The most comprehensive of the various causes of juvenile delinquency is the social causes. Among them, the leading causes are:
The Family:
The major situations in the family that cause juvenile delinquency are as follows –
Broken Families:
Where one parent is absent because of parental separation, divorce, or death, this fails to provide affection and control to the children.
Family tension:
A family where an environment filled with tension and hostility exists is found to be a good breeding ground for future delinquents.
The parental rejection or emotional deprivation: A child’s personality is considerably influenced by the character and conduct of its parents. But if a rejected or neglected child does not find love, affection, support, and supervision at home, he will often join groups of a deviant nature outside the family.
Parental control:
The rearing of children varies from situation to situation and from child to child. It has been found that the methods of disciplining children by punitive discipline, lax discipline, and erratic discipline (punitive and lax) can cause delinquency.
Emotional instability and behavioural disturbances:
Both or one of the parents can also lead to a child’s delinquent behavior. A child of parents who are constantly in conflict often exploits the situation and gets away with a great deal of misbehavior.
Family economics:
A family’s inability to provide for the child's material needs can create insecurity and affect the amount of control that the family exerts over the child because he often seeks material support and security outside the home.
The School:
After the family, a child’s personality is next influenced by the school. But one major form of juvenile delinquency is absconding from school.
Crime-dominated area:
According to the results of a study by Clifford, Shaw, and Mckay, some are not conducive to the development of children. It is a matter of common knowledge that the neighbourhood casts important influences upon the child.
Bad Company:
According to the famous criminologist Edwin H. Sutherland, criminal behaviour is acquired through interactions with others. He says that an individual becomes a criminal when there is an excess of conditions that promote the infringement of law over conditions that prevent such infringement.
Recreation:
The type and mode of entertainment available also have a far-reaching influence on children's character-building.
Absence of recreation:
Means of recreation have an important place in the child’s development. It is only a good and healthy atmosphere that can inspire the children for sensible and healthy behaviour in their spare time after school.
Defective recreation:
In modern times, the one means of recreation available to big and small is the cinema, which is responsible for juvenile delinquency and anti-social activity to quite an extent. New crime patterns are presented to an individual through scenes of adventure and romance.
War and Post-war conditions:
An increase in the rate of juvenile delinquency has been found during the war and post-war periods. Children’s education is considerably hindered and affected in countries that participate in the war. It often happens that in wartime, the father is in the format fighting the war, while the mother goes to the factory to earn.
Social disorganization:
Social disorganization leads to the disorganization of individuals. And disorganization of society leads to an increase in criminal activity; hence it, too, is one of the causes of juvenile delinquency.
Displacement:
Displacement also influences juvenile delinquency. In studying the town of Berkeley, Stuart discovered that juvenile delinquency lived in an area where there was considerable displacement. Still, compared to their respective families, they were much less active and dynamic.
Psychological Causes:
Psychological causes concerning criminal activity are as follows:
Intellectual Weakness:
Having rejected Lombroso’s principle, Dr. Goring advanced the theory that intellectual weakness is a cause of crime. Goddard was the main exponent of the notion that mental weakness is the cause of crime.
Mental diseases:
Some psychiatrists and neurologists believe that the psychopathic personality is a cause of crime. Psychopathic children are born in families where there is an almost complete absence of love, affection, and control. Concerning the psychopathic child, Tappan has written that he is very unsocialized, irritable, cruel, obstinate, suspicious, self-centered, lonely, full of revenge feelings, backward and hyper-sexual, or uncontrolled in his sexual behaviour. He is extremely devoid of repentance over his own cruel doings and the pain or suffering of others.
Characteristics of personality:
Juvenile delinquents have been found to possess some characteristic personality features that shed light on the causes of delinquency. Glueck, in his book Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency, pointed out that the degree of freedom, irresponsibility, revolt, homicidal tendency, suspicion, lack of control, some forms of sadism, emotional and social maladjustment, extrovert behaviour, etc., juvenile delinquents is much higher than in normal children.
Emotional instability:
In this way, emotional instability is one of the most important causes of crime. A child’s personality is unbalanced through lack of love and affection, emotional insecurity, strict discipline, the feeling of insufficiency and inferiority, and reaction or revolt. Such a state of mind inspires engagement in the child to criminal behaviour.
Economic Causes:
Crime and poverty are intimately related. A study conducted by Shaw, Mckay, and Elliot revealed that among juvenile delinquents, a majority belonged to families of unskilled workers. This discovery supports Bonger and Fornasiri, as they maintain that poverty acts as an incentive to crime. Concerning these juvenile delinquents, Merrill has written that a low family income compels the children also to share the burden and neglect their education. The atmosphere in the factories and mills leads the male and female children to crimes. Sometimes children are entrusted with carrying messages to the homes of persons where they often see all kinds of sexual practices. This has the worst effect on them, developing tendencies toward crime.
In fact, poverty is not the cause of crime; instead, the cause of crime is the psychological factor that arises in poverty and impels boys and girls from crime. In the treatise Juvenile Delinquency, Tappan says that poverty is related to crime, but mainly because, along with the subnormal economic situation, other elements of the child’s training and experience are also active, and these elements are more important in determining the reaction to character, values, and laws. Family quarrels and dissensions, delinquent gangs, and inadequate education are factors that are more active than the preferred attraction of non-conformity to law and order.
Consequences of juvenile delinquency in India
Juvenile delinquency, which refers to the involvement of young individuals in criminal activities, has significant consequences in India. The consequences can be broadly categorized into individual, societal, and family. It is important to note that while discussing these consequences, it is necessary to understand its sensitivity, recognizing that juvenile offenders often come from complex backgrounds and may be victims of various social issues themselves.
Individual Consequences:
Legal Consequences: Juvenile delinquency can lead to legal consequences for young offenders, including arrests, detention, and court trials. These experiences can have long-lasting effects on their lives and future opportunities.
Emotional and Psychological Impact: Involvement in criminal activities at a young age can have a profound impact on the emotional and psychological well-being of juveniles. They may experience guilt, shame, and low self-esteem, which can hinder their personal development and future prospects.
Education Disruption: Juvenile delinquency often leads to disruption in education, with young offenders dropping out of school or experiencing academic setbacks. This can limit their access to future opportunities and perpetuate a cycle of crime and poverty.
Societal Consequences:
Increased Crime Rates: Juvenile delinquency contributes to the overall crime rate in society. If left unchecked, it can lead to an increase in violence, property crimes, and other forms of criminal activities, negatively impacting public safety.
Social Disruption: The presence of juvenile offenders in communities can disrupt social harmony and cohesion. It can create fear and insecurity among residents, affecting the overall quality of life in neighbourhoods.
Burden on Criminal Justice System: The involvement of juveniles in criminal activities places an additional burden on the already overburdened criminal justice system. It requires resources for investigation, rehabilitation, and intervention programs.
Family Consequences:
Emotional Impact: Family members, particularly parents or guardians, may experience a range of negative emotions such as guilt, shame, anger, or helplessness when a child engages in delinquent behaviour. They may feel a sense of responsibility for their child's actions and struggle with feelings of disappointment and frustration.
Financial Burden: Families may face financial strain as a result of the legal consequences associated with juvenile delinquency. Legal fees, restitution payments, and counselling or intervention programs can impose a significant financial burden on families, potentially leading to additional stress and hardship.
Impact on Siblings: Siblings of delinquent youth can be profoundly affected by their brother or sister's actions. They may experience emotional distress, feel neglected, or face bullying or discrimination from peers due to their sibling's involvement in delinquency. The siblings may also worry about their own future and the potential influence of their sibling’s behaviour on their own lives.
From the above discussion, we learned that individual, social and family play a crucial role in the rehabilitation and reintegration of the juvenile offender. It is essential to address the underlying social issues that contribute to juvenile delinquency, such as poverty, lack of education, family dysfunction, and substance abuse, in order to create a supportive environment for at-risk youth and reduce the consequences of delinquency in India.
Remedies for Juvenile Delinquency
The problem of juvenile delinquency has drawn the attention of society. It is known that the delinquent child of today may turn out to be a chronic criminal tomorrow. Scholars have made discussions, debates, and studies at the national and international levels to seek out effective remedies for this problem.
Two methods have been suggested to deal with this problem: (A) the Preventive method and (B) the rehabilitative or curative method. In the former, factors leading to delinquency are to be tackled, and in the latter, those who have committed delinquent acts are to be helped to become normal citizens.
Preventive Measures
In order to prevent juvenile delinquency from taking place, the following measures may be suggested:
Creating and inspiring a team of work of private and public agencies devoted to preventive work.
Giving proper training to the members and staff of all organizations concerned with delinquency control.
Establishing child guidance clinics to give appropriate treatment to disturbed and maladjusted children.
Educating the family helps the parents to realize the importance of giving proper attention to the needs of their young children.
Establishing wholesome recreational agencies to prevent young children from becoming the victims of illicit or unwholesome recreation.
Giving proper assistance to underprivileged children to build good character and a law-abiding attitude.
Adopting various means of propaganda such as radio, movies, television, newspapers, magazines, etc., to realize the importance of law-abidingness and how it is always appreciated and rewarded.
Improving the social environment— slum areas, busy market places, gambling centres, etc., to prevent children from getting polluted.
Spotting potential delinquents by predictive tests in schools and giving appropriated treatment to such children.
The problems of beggary and poverty are to be removed or controlled, and the general economic standards of the people must be increased to prevent children from becoming delinquents due to economic exigencies.
Method of Rehabilitation
The main purpose of the rehabilitation method is neither to punish nor to take revenge upon the delinquent. The intention behind this method is to help the delinquent children to get proper guidance and training so that they become normal children and never repeat delinquent acts. The measures taken for the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency in India after 1850 may be briefly examined here:
Legislative Measures:
Various legislations have been made in India from time to time to deal with juvenile delinquency. Some of them may be briefed here.
Apprentices Act of 1850:
This Act has been the earliest step taken in the direction of preventing delinquency. The Act provides for the binding of children, both boys, and girls, between the ages of 10 to 18 as apprentices. Orphans and poor children could take benefit from this Act. Employers could take such children as apprentices to train them in some trade, craft, or employment by which they gain a livelihood later.
The father or guardian may bind a child above 10 and under 18 upto 21 years of age for a period not exceeding 7 years. A female child may be so bound until her marriage. The Act also dealt with children who committed petty offenses.
Reformatory Schools Act of 1897:
This Act can be considered a landmark in the history of the treatment of delinquency. This Act is in force in almost all the states of India. Under this Act, courts were empowered to send for detention youthful male offenders to Reformatory School for a period of not more than three years. It could be extended to seven also. No person may be detained in it after he attains the 18th year.
In conformity with this Act, the State Governments may establish and maintain Reformatory Schools to help the delinquents to get speedy recovery. Every school must provide inmates with sanitary arrangements, water supply, food, clothing, bedding, industrial training, and medical aid. These Reformatory Schools are reported to have done useful work.
Provision in the Criminal Procedure Code:
Under Section 399 of the Indian Criminal Procedure Code (ICPC), convicted young offenders below the age of 15 could be sent to Reformatory Schools established by the State Government. Section 562 of the C.P.C. also permitted the discharge of certain convicted offenders on probation. It also allowed their release with advice. Under Section 82 of the Indian Penal Code, children under seven cannot be held responsible for their criminal acts. Section 83 of the same Code relaxes this age upto 12 under some conditions.
Children Acts:
Various provinces of India took an interest in making some comprehensive laws in 1920 and afterward to deal with delinquent children. Of these, the Children Acts enacted by Madras in 1920 and followed by other States are more important. The main provisions of Children
No child under 14 years of age can be imprisoned under any circumstances, and no young person between 14 and 16 can be imprisoned unless he is certified to be an unruly person.
Except in the case of grave offenses, any person arrested on a charge and is below 16 is required to be released or bailed. In any case, such persons could not be kept in Jails.
The child or youthful offender cannot be sentenced to death or imprisonment except under extraordinary conditions. Persons below 12 are to be sent to Junior Certified Schools and 12 to 16 Senior Certified Schools.
The court may discharge the person after due admonition and hand him over to his parents or guardians after taking a bond from them that they would be responsible for his good behaviour for 12 months.
Juvenile Smoking Acts:
Some Acts to deal with the specific pattern of antisocial behaviour among children have also been passed. Of these, the Juvenile Smoking Acts are in force in most states. This Act prohibits the sale of tobacco to children below 16. According to this Act, children below 16 are not supposed to smoke in public places. (But these Acts were never enforced in any of the States).
Suppression of Immoral Traffic Acts:
These Acts are passed in order to protect young girls and suppress prostitution. The Acts prohibit certain practices connected with prostitution, such as soliciting in public places, using residential premises for running brothels, forcibly detaining young women in brothels, etc. Provisions are also made to protect girls from brothels or moral danger.
Probation of Offenders Act:
Under these Acts, Juvenile Courts can place youthful offenders under the supervision of probation officers.
Borstal Schools Acts for Adolescents:
These acts were passed to give special treatment to adolescent offenders, that is, offenders between 15 and 21 years of age. A Borstal School is a corrective institution and is one in which the offenders are subject to disciplinary and moral influences. These influences would help their reform.
Institutions to Rehabilitate Juvenile Delinquents
Preventive measures alone are not enough. Rehabilitative or reformative efforts are also needed to solve juvenile delinquency. Some of the institutions aimed at rehabilitating juvenile delinquents are there in India. They may be briefly examined here.
Juvenile Courts:
Juvenile Courts are established in order to treat separately juvenile delinquents from other adult criminals. Juvenile Courts have their own building, judicial bench, and other arrangements. Juvenile delinquents cannot be tried in ordinary courts. Whenever the juvenile courts are not there, they could be tested in different courts but on a separate day and at a fixed time to keep them separate from other adult criminals. Juvenile offenders cannot be chained and cannot be produced to the courts by the police in their uniform. No advocates are needed to plead for them. The main intention behind this particular treatment is to create positive feelings in the minds of juveniles. According to the Union Ministry of Education report, in 1950, there were only 39 Juvenile Courts in India.
Remand Homes:
When a child is arrested under the Act, he is produced before the magistrate within 24 hours and kept in Remand Home till the case is investigated. The child is kept in Remand Home until the final disposal of the case. Sometimes persons convicted are sent to Remand Homes for a few days and released later. These homes are managed mainly by Private Welfare agencies with governmental assistance. The precise number of such Remand Homes in India is not known.
Certified Schools:
Certified Schools are established mainly to give children some general education and technical training. Here the children are sent for long-term treatment. They are run by voluntary bodies or local authorities with the financial assistance of the government and the public. There are two types of schools:
Junior Schools for boys under 12.
Senior Schools for boys under 16.
The children are confined here for about 2 to 3 years. The school authorities can also make early discharges. After their release, they are put under the charge of a Welfare or Probation Officer who watches their activities.
Auxiliary Homes:
These Auxiliary Homes are attached to Certified Schools just like remand homes. Here the convicted delinquents are kept for some time and studied by a social worker. Later on, they are sent to certified schools depending upon the nature and attitude of the young offender.
Foster Homes:
Voluntary agencies mostly run foster Homes, and the governments give grants to them. They are specially created for delinquent children under 19 who cannot be sent to approved or certified schools.
Reformatory Schools:
In states where there are no Children Acts, Reformatory Schools are established. They are meant for the education and vocational training of delinquent children. The young convicted offenders below 15 years are detained here for 3 to 7 years. The delinquents are removed from harmful environments through these schools.
Borstal Institutions:
Under the Borstal system, special treatment is provided for adolescent offenders between the ages of 15 to 21 years. Borstal institutions are of two types:
Open type.
Closed type.
‘Open’ institution is a camp in the open country with no surrounding wall. A closed institution is a converted prison building in which maximum security is given to inmates. Though it is called a ‘Closed’ institution, most of its activities meant for children are carried on outside the building.
Young offenders are very often sent to Borstal’s institution for rehabilitation rather than kept under imprisonment. The term of Borstal is 2 to 3 years and in any case it should not exceed 5 years. If the offenders are found to be unruly and incorrigible, they are sent to jails. A separate arrangement is there to give training to boys and girls. The training, physical exercises, and education that are shown here are very tough to prevent the inmates from committing offenses again.
Fit Person Institutions and Uncared Children Institutions:
These are the two nongovernment institutions managed by private bodies and philanthropists. These institutions give refuge and protection to the destitute, neglected children, children in the pre-delinquent stage, and the delinquent children. Such children and their activities are supervised by the appointed officers.
A grave problem such as juvenile delinquency cannot be solved by means of legislation and government efforts alone. For this, we need to evaluate the working of the police, juvenile courts, and other social control machinery segments that influence juvenile delinquency. As far as India is concerned, in many of the states Children, Acts have not been effectively enforced. Some of these Acts themselves have defects. Official machinery is not effectively used to control this problem. Thus rather than cutting the weeds from the top, they should be destroyed by pulling them out completely.
Similarly, in order to get rid of juvenile delinquency, we should destroy the conditions under which it breeds, and for doing so, a coordinated effort by the community is the only way out. Governmental as well as private agencies must work hand in hand with all sincerity and seriousness to find an effective remedy for the problem of juvenile delinquency. The public attitude towards juvenile delinquents must also change. A juvenile delinquent is a product of an unwholesome environment congenial for developing his faculties in conformity with social expectations.
Thus, Juvenile delinquency is a severe and multidimensional problem which is on rising. It is necessary to deal with this problem with a multifaceted approach. It is crucial to frame a comprehensive social welfare programme with better resource utilization and emphasize effective planning, monitoring, and evaluation of the existing programmes.
Rao, C. N. (2015). Indian Social Problems A Sociological Perspectives. New Delhi: S. Chand & Company Pvt. Ltd. Pg.124-127
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