Last Updated: Jan 2025 (Juvenile Delinquency)
Juvenile Delinquency
This article deals with ‘Juvenile Delinquency ’. This is part of our series on ‘Society’ which is an important pillar of the GS-1 syllabus. For more articles, you can click here.
Introduction
Juvenile delinquency, also referred to as Juvenile in conflict with law, involves individuals under the age of 18 engaging in unlawful activities.
Causes of Juvenile Delinquency
- Dysfunctional Families: Broken homes, domestic violence, and substance abuse make children vulnerable to indulging in unlawful activities.
- Negligent Parenting and Strict Parenting: Overly strict or neglectful parenting styles can foster resentment in children.
- Breakdown of Traditional Joint Families: The breakdown of traditional joint families leads to the absence of a social control agency. In joint families, older members intervene to prevent deviant behaviour.
- Corruption of Value System: Due to rapid societal changes (globalization, westernization, etc.), traditional cultural values have been diluted.
- Negative impact of Social Media: The Fear of Mission Out (FOMO) compels juveniles to adopt risky behaviours to fit in.
- Glorification of Crime by Media and Movies: Juveniles tend to imitate behaviours of perceived “successful” but negative role models in a phenomenon known as Anticipatory Socialization.
- Subculture of Crime in Children Living in Slums: Children in such socioeconomically disadvantaged areas view criminal activities as a survival mechanism and means to escape poverty.
- Lack of Adolescent Education in Educational Institutions
Consequences of Juvenile Delinquency
- Loss of Nation’s Human Resources: Juveniles involved in delinquent activities are unable to contribute effectively to the economy, which could have otherwise added to the country’s demographic dividend.
- Low Social Status leads to difficulty in Mainstreaming: Juveniles who come into conflict with the law are stigmatized and labelled as criminals by society, making it difficult for them to find employment or get education opportunities.
- Overburdened Criminal Justice System: Juvenile crimes increase the workload on the justice system
- Cycle of Crime: A juvenile engaged in small-scale theft frequently progresses to more serious offences.
- Economic Costs: The state bears high costs for running reformative homes, juvenile courts, and rehabilitation centres.
Juvenile Justice (Amendment) Act
- Juvenile Justice Act defines a child as a person who has not completed 18 years of age.
- In 2015, it was amended to add a provision wherein a child in the age group of 16-18 years could be tried as an adult in case of heinous offences.
- Heinous crime is a crime that requires imprisonment for 7 years .
- The Juvenile Justice Board, consisting of psychologists and social experts, assesses whether “the crime was committed as a ‘child’ or as an ‘adult’.