Development of children ensures sustainability of the society. There are different kinds of children, some complying well with the social system, others getting exploited silently while very few exhibiting defiant behaviour.
Sometimes the wayward behaviour of the children results in breaking of law. A child in conflict with law is one who is alleged or found to have committed an offence. Sometimes, the term is interchangeably used as juvenile delinquent. Society has traditionally shown compassion to the erring children as they are dependants on the society, incapable of imagining the consequences of their wrong actions. laws have been evolved on this principle of immaturity, giving clemency to the wayward children and adopting the path of reform for their integration to society instead of ostracizing them into four walls of jails.
Sometimes, this compassion gets shattered as it happened during the infamous Delhi Nirvaya case. But these are stray instances out of 35 crores child population. These defenseless spontaneous crimes of negligible children in comparison to the thousands of law-evading and well designed adult crimes should not dilute society’s compassion for children. The society is responsible to prevent such deviation of children and integrate them in the aftermath of an offence, keeping in view their long career.
The Indian National Crime Record Bureau’s 2015 annual report states that the share of juvenile IPC crimes to total IPC crimes in the country is around 1 per cent over the years and was 31,396 in 2015.
The highest share of cases registered against juveniles was reported under the crime head ‘theft’ (19.2 per cent), criminal trespass/burglary (8.3 per cent), rape (5.4 per cent) and kidnapping and abduction (5.2 per cent) and ‘causing injuries under rash driving/road rage' (4.9 per cent). These five crimes together accounted for 43.0 per cent of total IPC cases. Madhya Pradesh with 6,320 cases, Maharashtra with 5,482 cases, Delhi with 2,332 cases, Rajasthan with 2,126 cases, Chhattisgarh with 1,788 cases, Bihar with 1,562 cases and Tamil Nadu with 1,483 cases have accounted for 67.2 per cent cases in 2015.
Out of 41,385 juveniles apprehended during 2015, 40,468 were boys and only 917 were girls. Similarly, 602 juveniles were in the age-group below 12 years, 11,052 in the age-group of 12-16 years and 29,731 under the age-group of 16-18 years. The 16-18 age group accounted for 71.8 per cent of total juveniles. The illiterate and primary level education acquiring children constituted 45.9 per cent of total juveniles.
Similarly, children living with parents accounted for 85.6 per cent of the total juveniles apprehended. With regard to class background,42.4 per cent juveniles belonged to the poor families whose annual income was up to Rs 25,000, 28.2 per cent belonged to families with income between Rs 25,000 and Rs 50,000, 25.9 per cent from the income group between Rs 50,000 and Rs 2,00,000 . The crimes may be more in reality due to under- reporting but the trend gives clarity.
The data indicates low size of children is involved in heinous crimes and they are usually boys coming from poor background with almost no education and living with parents.
India has a progressive Juvenile Justice Act, to deal with these children, founded on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice, 1985 (the Beijing Rules), the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their liberty (1990), the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and so on. The UNCRC, which India has ratified, states that the children who break the law should not be treated cruelly, nor put in prison with adults and should not be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. The child , under 18 years of age, who commits a crime is legally entitled neither to be termed as a criminal nor to be treated like an adult- accused by the police nor to undergo trial in usual criminal court and or sent to police lock-up or jail.
The Indian law categorises offences into three categories according to the span of imprisonment award such as petty, serious and heinous ones. It provides for special juvenile police unit and child welfare police officer to apprehend the child, a special judicial system called as the Juvenile Justice Board at the district level and shelter provision for these children in Observation Homes during investigation or trial if needed and in Special Homes for reformation. The law emphasizes on rehabilitation. The JJB is empowered to give instant bail and finish investigation or trial within 3 months and send the child to the parents’ custody or reform homes with reformative facility of education, vocational training, counseling and so on. Only in case of heinous crimes of children between 16-18 years of age a special Children Court shall take the trial if the child’s mental age is found to be like adults.
The Child Probation Officer, the District Child Welfare Committee, District legal Service Authority, the District Child Protection Unit, the Child Welfare Officer and the Child Care Institutions play their roles in restoration, rehabilitation, reintegration of the child into society.
It appears that ensuring access of the children of the poor families to education, encouraging family and social care, elimination of children’s contact with the criminals, drives like Muskaan to rescue the children from work and abandonment situation, technical counselling and rehabilitation of deviant children and monitoring their conduct with data base shall work as preventive steps. There is need for continuous training of all stakeholders.
Though Odisha is not a State with high incidence of children in conflict with law but the issue is growing .The State Government should open more Observation and Special Homes with adequate healthcare, sanitation and education facilities as identified by one CAG report. The children in the people’s movement and ultra-left infected areas should be cared for. The State Government should formulate the new JJ Rules at the earliest and put psychologist services under JJBs. Jails should be inspected regularly to ensure that there is no JJ Act violation unlike Bulu Biswal of Ranpur sub jail.