COMMENTARY

Analysis of Juvenile Crime

Effects of State Apparatus
Malvika Tyagi

Crime committed by juveniles in

India and the law pertaining to
it has been the subject of debate
and concern, primarily because
of a perceived rise of violent
crime and the proposal (and
eventual amendment in 2015)
of treating juvenile offenders
involved in heinous crimes as
adults. This evokes an enquiry
into the various aspects of
crime committed by juveniles,
such as the trend of such crime
over time, the socio-economic
characteristics of juvenile
offenders, and the role of the state
in dealing with it.

Malvika Tyagi (malvika.tyagi@gmail.

com) is a doctoral student of Economics at
the Department of Humanities and Social
Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology,
New Delhi.
Economic & Political Weekly

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DECEMBER 17, 2016

he Apprentices Act, 1850 was the

very first legislation pertaining to
children which provided for the
rehabilitation of those in the age group
of 1018 years convicted for an offence.
This was followed by the Reformatory
Schools Act, 1897, and the Madras Children Act, 1920, Bengal Children Act, 1922
and Bombay Children Act, 1924.
The Children Act, 1960 was the first
central enactment in independent India
relating to children which followed the
United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders. It applied only to the union territories, since the subject matter of juvenile
justice fell under the state list of the
Indian Constitution.
The United Nations Standard Minimum
Rules for the Administration of Juvenile
Justice were an opportunity as well as a
compulsion for Indian Parliament to
bring a uniform juvenile justice legislation for the entire country (except for the
state of Jammu and Kashmir). Hence,
the Juvenile Justice Act came into being.
It defined a juvenile as a boy as not
having attained the age of 16 years and a
girl as not having attained the age of 18
years. A delinquent juvenile was defined
as a juvenile who was alleged to have
committed an offence.
Even though the Government of India
had ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992, it
felt the need to re-enact the existing law
to bring in conformity this particular,
as well as all other international instruments. This led to the enactment of the
Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of
Children) Act, 2000. This act increased
the age of majority from 16 to 18 (in the
case of boys), a decision which has been
partially reversed in 2015 by reducing
the age of majority from 18 to 16 in cases
of heinous crime.
Although the issue of juvenile crime
and the efficacy of the state in curbing it
vol lI no 51

has been debated in the last couple of

years, there has not been, so far, a quantitative analysis in the Indian context to
bring out the relation between the two,
keeping in mind the other plausible factors that lie at the root of this socio-economic problem. This is what this article
attempts to do.
Figures 1 and 2 (p 18) show the trend
of juvenile crime over the last decade.
Juvenile crime has only slightly increased,
both in absolute terms and as a percentage of total crime, after the Juvenile
Justice (Care and Protection of Children)
Act, 2000 came into being. This means
that the slight increase was on account of
a change in the definition of juvenile
crime (as now even those above the age
of 16 were considered juveniles). But, the
slight upward trend even many years
after the act means that juvenile crime
has increased generally over the last
decade. This is further seen in Figure 3
(p 18), which shows the continuously increasing proportion of arrested juveniles
over the age of 16.
Looking at the socio-economic characteristics of delinquents, it is seen that
mostly the school dropouts and ones
belonging to the poorest of families
comprise the highest proportion of those
committing crime (Figures 4 and 5 [p 19],
respectively).
Methodology
While panel data has been assimilated
for assessing the response of juvenile
crime to the state apparatus, the main
purpose of using state-level panel data
instead of all-India time series data, is to
have a more robust result. While it
would have been nice to have been able
to use data for a longer time period and
bring out any possible state/time-fixed
effect impact, the lack of many control
variables for a longer time period has
impeded such an attempt. An ordinary
least square (OLS) estimation1 of juvenile
crime response to state apparatus2 seems
to be well suited, given the short time
span and the minimal variation in the
variables at hand.
The number of crimes committed by
juveniles (juvenilecrimeit) has been defined as a fraction of juvenile population
(in the age group 1518 years) that has
17

COMMENTARY
Figure 1: Number of Juvenile Delinquents

(in lakh)

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
Source: Constructed by author using data from the National Crime Records Bureau.

2006

2008

2010

2012

Figure 2: Percentage of Total Crime Committed by Juveniles

1.4

1.2

This is more so because it is rare for juveniles to commit crime without an adult
accomplice, as observed in Tyagi (2016).
The third explanatory variable is the
strength of police personnel as a proportion of the population of a state. It is
important to control for other relevant
variables, such as development indicators (Human Development Index [HDI],
sex ratio, gross enrolment ratio, percentage of Scheduled Caste population,
child labour), and others, such as power
deficit, corruption, etc, which may have
an effect on the juvenile crime rate. This
is to ensure that the variation in juvenile
crime rate is not the result of some unaccounted exogenous variables, especially as
strong correlations are observed between
them and juvenile crime.
The following equation is estimated:
juvenilecrimeit = 0 + 1 convictedjuveniles i(t-1) + 2adutsarrestedit + 3policeit
+ 4 [Control Variablesit] +uit

0.8

0.6

where i is the ith state, t stands for the

year, and u is the error term.

0.4

0.2

Data Sources
0
1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Source: Same as Table 1.

Figure 3: Age Group-wise Percentage of Crime Committed by Juveniles

80
Juveniles apprehended, 1618
70
60
50
Juveniles apprehended, 1216
40
30
20
Juveniles apprehended, 712
10
0
1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Source: Same as Table 1.

been apprehended for committing crime.3

The age group-wise population data
only contains the category 1519 years. It
is better to use apprehended instead of
convicted as a large proportion of cases
remain pending when, at the same time,
the acquittal rate is very low.
The state apparatus comprises three
variables. The first is one-period lagged
values (to rule out simultaneity as well as
18

possible ratio bias) of the log of convicted

juveniles (convicted because their incarceration time, unlike adults, is too low, so
the demonstration effect is only expected
to show up upon conviction). The second is adults arrested (not convicted,
because disposal of adult cases is much
slower than for juveniles, so the demonstration effect of adult punishment is
captured well enough by the arrest).

Panel data comprising 13 states from

2003 to 2007 is compiled. The dependent
variable is computed from the annual
publications of the National Crime Records
Bureau (NCRB). The three explanatory
variablesjuveniles convicted, adults
arrested and strength of police personnelare also obtained from the annual
publications of the NCRB. Data for the control variablesincome, youth unemployment, sex ratio and percentage of Scheduled Caste populationare obtained from
the census and/or the National Sample
Survey Offices quinquennial reports. Data
for gini coefficient, HDI, and child labour
are obtained from Nayak et al (2010),
Human Development Report 2009, and
the Ministry of Labour and Employment,
respectively, and interpolated. Data for
corruption indicators, transmission and
distribution losses, and power deficit (an
indicator of the efficiency of a state) are
obtained from Indiastat.4
Results
The statewise data shows that Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan
have the highest juvenile crimes, followed

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COMMENTARY
Figure 4: Number of Juvenile Delinquents by Educational Status
16,000
Primary

Above primary but below matriculation

12,000

Illiterate

8,000
Matriculation or above
4,000

0
2001
2002
2003
Source: Same as Table 1.

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Figure 5: Number of Juvenile Delinquents by Income Groups

30,000
30000
25,000
25000

20,000
20000

15,000
15000

10,000
10000

5000
5,000
00
2001

2002 2003 2004 2005

Up to Rs.25000
`25,000
Upto
`1,00,000
`2,00,000
Rs.1
lakh totoRs.2
lakh

2006

2007

2008

`
25,001 to `To50,000
Rs.25,001
Rs.50,000
`
2,00,000
`3,00,000
Rs.2
lakh totoRs.
3 lakh

2011 2012 2013

`50,001 toto
`1,00,000
Rs.50001
Rs.1 lakh
3,00,000
Above `Rs.
3 lakh

Source: Same as Table 1.

Table 1: Linear Regression

Dependent Variable: Juvenile crime
Prob > F=0.0000; R-squared=0.82
Coefficient

Convicted juveniles(t1)
Adults arrested
Police
Per capita income
Youth unemployment
Gini urban
Gini rural
HDI
Corruption
Child labour
Sex ratio

Robust Standard Error

-0.00335***
0.00017**
-12.54*
6.88
.005*
4.741
13.401*
.440
.013
4.261
.040

.0018
.000
5.16
.000
.001
3.446
5.834
.189
.009
4.091
.036

t-statistic

P value

-1.85
4.87
-2.43
.56
-3.43
1.38
2.30
2.33
1.29
-0.10
1.11

0.071
0.000
0.019
0.579
0.002
0.177
0.027
0.25
0.204
0.918
0.272

Note: Number of observations = 64.

* Significant at the 5% level; ** Significant at the 1% level; *** Significant at the 10% level

by Gujarat and Haryana. Kerala, Punjab

and West Bengal have some of the
lowest recorded juvenile crimes. It is
seen that a higher gini coefficient
(rural), high incidence of child labour
and a high corruption indicator (using
the conventional transmission and distribution loss as proxy) seem to correlate with increased juvenile crime, and
negatively correlate with a higher gross
enrolment ratio, sex ratio and per capita

income of a state. If taken together,

these variables continue to have the
depicted effects on the dependent variable, although only a couple of them
(sex ratio and ginirural) remain significant. I chose to use them only as
control rather than as explanatory variables because they involve the exercise
of interpolation due to lack of data
(although, since the time period is
short, and these variables are slow

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DECEMBER 17, 2016

changing by nature, this should not be

of much concern).
As can be seen in Table 1, convicted juveniles and police strength have a discouraging (negative) effect of 0.003% and
12% respectively, while adult arrests have
a positive effect (all variables are in logs).
The discouraging effect of past convictions may not entirely be indicative of
deterrence, and may partially be a result
of the incarceration effect, that is, those
who are prone to recidivism are now
confined in juvenile homes, unable to
commit crime. The relatively large role of
the police in curbing crime is suggestive of
the need to increase police visibility. The
fact that adult crime might be influencing juvenile crime, as indicated by a positive relation between the two, however
little the influence, is a disturbing feature and is also borne out in my ongoing
fieldwork. An increase in gini coefficient
(rural) and youth unemployment seem
to increase juvenile crime, while it seems
to be unrelated to the other control variables, but that is not surprising given the
short time span studied in this case.
Concluding Remarks
Although reported juvenile crime rate in
India is not very high, it has been on the
rise over the last decade, with those 16
years or more in age comprising well over
half of the delinquents in total. The largest
proportion of recent juvenile offenders
is of those who have finished primary
school, and dropped out after that, reaffirming the observations of Tyagi (2016).
Until a few years back, the largest proportion of juvenile offenders was of
those who were in primary school,
which is in line with the concentration
aspect of schooling (Jacob and Lars
2003), wherein the increase in potentially volatile interactions as a result of
geographical concentration overshadows the incapacitation effect of school
(engaging in constructive activities).
The fact that an overwhelmingly large
proportion of offenders belong to the
poorest of families speaks volumes of
their vulnerability in falling prey to
crime, and debunks the dismissal of delinquents as merely psychologically disturbed, or depraved beings, without any
socio-economic disability.
19

COMMENTARY

Some socio-economic indicators used

as controls in this article, such as youth
unemployment and gini coefficient, have
a statistically significant positive impact
on juvenile crime, but their interpolated
nature and the short time span in this
particular study gives only a weak result.
There seems to be some evidence of
the potential of the state apparatuss
deterrence on juvenile crime, but with
caveats. Given that police density turns
out to be important in curbing crime, the
fact that both geographically as well as
in terms of per capita, it is rather low in
most states, is worrying.
Even though conviction of juveniles
seems to curb crime (although minimally),
it could be the case that a good proportion
of juvenile offenders are prone to recidivism, which means that the fall in crime is
merely an affect of incarceration, as habitual offenders are held up in juvenile

20

homes. Moreover, there is the question

of imperfect information. If potential
delinquents are not well-informed of the
consequences of their actions, or act on
impulse, or are emboldened by virtue of
being in the company of adults, then the
extent to which conviction can curb future
crime is small. The positive relation between the number of adult and juvenile
offenders brings out the schooling aspect of crime, wherein it is in the company of potential adult offenders or even
repeat offenders that juveniles may be
engaging in crime, as also reflected in
my earlier article (Tyagi 2016).
Notes
1

Since the nature of the data is that of a panel, a

natural question that arises is why the fixed
effects or the random effects technique is not
used. This is because fixed effects will not work
well with data for which the within-cluster
variation is minimal, or for slow-changing variables over time, which is the case with this
data. The rationale behind the random effects

model is that, unlike the fixed effects model,

the variation across entities is assumed to be
random and uncorrelated with the predictor or
independent variables included in the model,
which is unlikely to be the case here.
Inspired from Steven D Levitt (1998), who uses
a similar methodology to measure the impact
of punishment on juvenile crime.
Levitt (1998) also uses another definition of juvenile crime, the fraction of total arrests that
comprise of juveniles, multiplied by total cognisable crime. But, as he himself admits, this
might lead to a simultaneity and a ratio bias, a
problem I want to avoid.
http://www.indiastat.com.

References
Jacob, B and L Lars (2003): Are Idle Hands the
Devils Workshop? Incapacitation, Concentration, and Juvenile Crime, American Economic
Review, Vol 93, pp 156077.
Levitt, Steven D (1998): Juvenile Crime and Punishment, Journal of Political Economy, Vol 106,
No 6, pp 115685.
Nayak, P K, S K Chattopadhyay, A V Kumar and
V Dhanya (2010): Inclusive Growth and Its
Regional Dimension, Occasional Papers, Reserve Bank of India, Vol 31, No 3.
Tyagi, M (2016): Understanding Juvenile Crime:
Notes from the Field, Economic & Political
Weekly, Vol 51, No 2, pp 2325.

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