3rd INTERNAL ASSESSMENT SOCIOLOGY

TOPIC-
Juvenile delinquency and Juvenile delinquency Legislation in India
 Juvenile delinquency and Juvenile delinquency Legislation in India

Human's life; the way it capacities have such a variety of things in like manner. Each human in
the wake of being conceived on earth needs to experience a portion of the clearing exercises of
his life which is most considerable part in his life. The stage which specialist is alluding is
Childhood. It is a standout amongst the most critical subordinates in any individual's life. In
adolescence one and only takes in the fundamental qualities and decorums of life. It is this stage
just which makes us empower to see a portion of the exceptionally fundamental things whether
these things portray exemplary nature of life or showcase a unimportant part of life. In a well-
known axiom it is additionally illustrated that it is never past the point where it is possible to
have a glad adolescence. The most vital thing about above saying is "upbeat youth" since this
period of life ought to instill the essential ethics into each human's life generally comes about
which are appeared in future can be extremely deceptive. A standout amongst the most fortunate
things in life of people is to have an upbeat adolescence. After that stage comes another of the
most vital parts of life i.e. young people stage. Young person age can be extensively ordered
inside the minors and majors. Along these lines, specialist needs to begin portraying this issue by
a popular quote by FriedrickDoughlas and it goes like "It is less demanding to assemble a solid
youngsters than to repair a corrupted mindset of a kid. This is a phase of life where each young
person gets enticed to corrupt, profanity, barbarity and unfriendly exercises of life and truly
needs to feel these dangerous joys. So what's essential for each youngster is to get stayed with
their fundamental temperate, conventional and moral ethics of life and they likewise ought to
have some key seeing so they can undoubtedly judge what is correct and what isn't right. In any
case, what is found in late patterns of our general public is that there has been increment in
number of wrongdoings submitted by these young people bunch and particularly the minor ones
and this is the thing that we call the Juvenile Delinquency is about.

HISTORY OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN INDIA

The term adolescent equity rose up out of the word Juvenis, in latin it implies Young so an
equity framework for the youthful. Generally the idea of adolescent equity was gotten from a
conviction that the issues of adolescent wrongdoing in unusual circumstances are not agreeable
to the determination inside the structure of conventional procedure of criminal law. Over the
time a need felt in guaranteeing that adolescent equity framework alongside cooking the
requirements of youthful guilty parties just it additionally give particular and preventive
treatment administrations like group backing, fitting generic state intercession with the family,
group and institutional mediations for the kids and as a method for counteractive action,
restoration and socialization through schools and religious bodies.

Amid the British Rule certain laws were instituted to address the issue of adolescent misconduct
and youngster welfare. Laws like Whipping Act of 1864 was passed to rebuff the adolescent
through whipping and afterward setting him free with the goal that he ought not rehash the same
demonstration, it was to dissuade the tyke against carrying out wrongdoing. The Indian Penal
code Act 1860 and criminal strategy code 1861 treating youngster diversely through different
methods. Act XIX of 1850, 1876 reformatory schools act, the Borstal School Act, Children's
demonstration of 1920, and other state particular enactments like Bengal youngsters' Act,
Madras kids' Act to address dismissed and freak kids' these laws gave delinquents some unique
arrangements with respect to their Institutionalization and recovery .

LITERATURE REVIEW

CAUSES OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

Juvenile delinquency is also known as teenage crime. Before coming of age girls and boys have
less understanding of the world. Parents, friends and teachers are all responsible along with the
juvenile who commit a crime. This is why courts do not punish the teenagers like they punish the
adults when they commit a crime. There are separate juvenile courts and the purpose of juvenile
punishment is to help the teenager understand the importance of staying away from
crimes. There are various causes which lead to such type of despicable acts.

 FAMILY
 Family is the basic socialization agency for the children. Family can make or break the
personality of the children. In family the most important role is played by the parents and
siblings. Most of the adolescents who show delinquent behaviour in any form belong to
families that could not give firm foundation to the children. Broken families, single parent
families, separated families, frequent parents fight, lack of trust and confidence among the
parents, criminal parents or psychological problems in parents can be the most important
reason behind juvenile delinquency. When parents or siblings do not show moral behaviour
or they commit crime children or younger siblings also get motivation for do something bad
a delinquent behaviour.

Thus the factors within the family which lead a particular person to commit such type of
nefarious acts are:

1. Economic problems in family

2. Psychological problems in family
3. Social problems in family
4. Moral problems in family
5. Parenting style

 PERSONAL REASONS
Sometimes parents or family has nothing to do with the delinquent behavior of the juvenile,
neither does the teachers or neighborhood have to do with the delinquent behavior of the
teenager. Sometimes the adolescent faces hardship in life due to some psychological or physical
problem that he is going through. A physical handicap will go through many problems in life as
the society does not accept a person who does not have similar capacities and abilities that a
normal person has. Use of drugs by the youngsters in these days is very common. Due to drug-
addiction the children starts committing small offences. Intoxication results in assault on other
family members particularly females and children which disturbs family discipline. The lack of
discipline in family is highly hazardous to the child. The child should be checked whenever it is
necessary otherwise they may indulge commission of offence1 .

1
Annual Report of Children’s Aid society Bombay (1960-61) pp. 33-34
1. Bad Company

2. Adolescent instability and impulses

3. Early sex experiences

4. Mental conflicts

5. Excessive social suggestibility

6. Love of adventure

7. Motion pictures

8. School dissatisfaction

9. Poor recreation

10. Street life

11. Vocational dissatisfaction

12. Sudden impulse

13. Physical condition2

 Culture conflicts

In a dynamic society, social change is an inevitable phenomenon. The impact of modernization

urbanization and industrialization in a rapidly changing society may sometimes result in social
disorganization and this may led to culture conflicts between different valves of different
sections of society. The immigration affects the crime rate of a place. Culture conflict between
inhabitants and immigrants results in deviant behavior. Ruth & Cavan3 found that Eskimos who
are still not free from the problem of crime till now. How they frequently indulge into deviant

2
Healy . and Bronner. “A Delinquent & Criminals’ – Their making and unmaking p. 179.
3
Cavan, Ruth Shonle and Ferdinand, Theodore n. (1981) Juvenile Delinquency. 4th. Ed. New York:
Harper and Row.
behavior such as loitering drunkenness and sex offences due to their immigration to urban areas
and social contract with non-Eskiness. India has faced this problem during Indo-Pak partition
days in 1947 and Bangladesh in 1971. There was in flood of ‘Refugees’ from Sindh and North
West frontiers region in 1947, which broke down their traditional social structure of Indian
Society and resulted into enormous increase in crime.

Analysis;

In order to prevent Juvenile Delinquents we have to deal not only with maladjusted children and
youths whose difficulties bring them before law, but also with those who while not violating
laws, are disturbing others in school and in the street. Prevention is necessary for such children.
If they are not prevented then they would become the habitual offender so their prevention is
necessary. They make mistakes and become excited and fail to behave according to legitimate
expectations. First of all, we should identify such juveniles and thereafter give him treatment.
They will become habitual offender if they are not timely prevented from committing the
offence. Juvenile delinquency, as a sign of sick society is day by day becoming an alarm to
awaken those who are either struck with the disease or those who are likely to get struck. Over-
crowding in the cities, coming up of slums, cinema, smuggling, gambling and drinking are some
of the contributory factors responsible for this ever growing phenomenon. This study is guided
by a desire to gain an insight into the problem of delinquency and its statutory treatment in a
remote developing region of this vast and ever growing country. An attempt has been made to
know the various causes of delinquency and its nature in different areas and strata of society.
2.5.1 Preventive Programmes of Juvenile Delinquency There may be two kinds of programmes
for preventing the juvenile delinquency;

(i) Individual Programme Individual programme involves the prevention of delinquency through
counseling, psychotherapy and proper education.

(ii) Environmental programme Environmental programme involves the employment of

techniques with a view to changing the socio-economic context likely to promote delinquency.
These two forms of preventive approaches are reflected in the following strategies, which are
adopted in crime prevention programmes.
(i) Individual Programme;

(a) Clinical programme- The object of this clinic is to provide aids through Psychiatrists Clinical
Psychologists and Psychiatric Social workers to help the Juveniles delinquents in understanding
their personality problems. Taft and England4 have listed the function of clinics as follows to
participate in discovery of pre delinquents.

 To investigate cases selected for study and treatment

. To treat cases itself or to refer cases to other agencies for treatment.

 To interest other against in psychiatrically oriented types of treatment of

 Behavioral disorders in children

 To cooperate in training of students intending to specialize in treatment of behavioral

problems
(b) Educational Programme;
The impacts of educational institutions are very significant in the countries where almost every
child going to school and preventive programme can be launched in an effective manner through
the schools. Teachers should not discriminate among the students; they should be treated equally
and provided the moral education which is very helpful to the students for their life stand. Moral
education is a significant factor for the students, which decide their life. They should be able to
understand the difference between right and wrong ideas which are favourable for them and
which are not. They should learn to respect the property of others. They should not steal the
things of others. It is duty of the teacher to provide the moral education to the students and teach
them the art of living in the society with the good manner.
Child needs his parent’s love and affection also. Unless his parents really love him the child can
not get the best of his parents love and affection. Child needs unconditional, immediate and true
love, care and protection of his mother and father. On account of deprivation of such love and
care the child may develop frustration and dissatisfaction leading to crime. So parental love, care
and protection is very necessary for the child to prevent him for committing or doing the crime.

4
Talf and England, Criminology P. 524.
Conclusion and Suggestions;
In the present study all the offenders are in the age group of 15-18 years, which is categorized as
the adolescent age. In a community the adolescent age is between 14-18 years, and it is the age in
which the children have committed the offences such as theft, murder, rape, smoking, and
drinking. Further than the incontestable changes and growth of adolescent, biologically and
psychologically, adolescence presents three essential features such as development of self-
consciousness, asserting their identity, social integration. A sense of right and wrong, normative
and motivational, oriented to deny and reject the adult models and search their own models
which reflects the instable personality of a teenager. It is not only the individual factor which is
responsible for delinquency or crime rather it is the multi-dimensional factors which are
responsible for delinquency. Wellford (1989) viewed that due to the complexity of human
conduct and the various multi-cause factors, the best way to progress in the field of criminology
is through the combination of multi-level, multidisciplinary factors, where the multi-level factor
involves the micro-level and macrolevel. The interaction of a child within the family has also a
greater influence on delinquency. Empirical researches in the field of juvenile delinquency
suggests that if proper supervision, education and training in school as well as in home will be
provided to the children then it will help to eliminate the indulgence of these children in the
world of criminality. It is considered that parents and teachers play a crucial role in the actual
development and growth of a child’s character; keeping this in view they can help in reducing
the occurrence of deplorable incidence.

 More number of teachers should be appointed in the observation home so that it will be
possible to provide teaching to the different age group of delinquents.
 Developing the infrastructural facilities of Short stay homes and Observation homes is a
top priority.
 Education should be an integral part of the positive development of these children in
conflict with law
 Delinquents should be dealt in a sensitive manner .Proper training should be given to the
authority and caretakers in these homes.
 Proper socialization from the childhood is a key requirement.
 More parental focus towards their children is needed for their proper development.