Juvenile Act

A “Juvenile” or “Child” means a person who has not turned eighteen years of age. International Law interprets, a ‘Child’ means every human being below the age of 18 years. Today this is a universally accepted definition of a child which comes from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)In india the problems of juveniles were lately highlighted compared to other countries in the world .

Before only rules were made and less importance were given to children’s cases.The frightful incident of “Nirbhaya Delhi Gang Rape Case” on December 16, 2012 shocked the whole nation and many debates were started among legal fraternity and socialists.So thats how juvenile system and juvenile board got its importance and made aware to not only the judges or respected legal faculties but also each and every person in our country.

INTRODUCTION

Our country’s future depends on our children. So its the duty and responsibility of every individual to ensure that the children have a safe environment to live in. Juvenile crime has elevated  to be one of the most menacing and intimidating disease in our society.This act has guaranteed that regardless of religion, youngsters needing consideration and assurance will be given the advantages of a different legal process.

After Independence, the constitutional provisions have encouraged the developments in the field of juvenile justice system in India. 

Part III and Part IV of the constitution of India which deal with “Fundamental Rights” and “Directive Principles of State Policy” respectively and contain special provisions with respect to care and protection of the children.

Juvenile Justice ( Care and Protection)Act, 2015:

The Juvenile Justice Bill, 2014 was passed by the Parliament in December, 2015 and it became the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 which into force from 15th January, 2016. Under the Act of 1986, Section 2(a) defined the term juvenile as a “boy who has not attained the age of 16 years and girl who has not attained the age of 18 years”.The main reason and issue of the debate was the involvement of accused, who was just six months away to attain the age of 18 years. The involvement of the accused in such a heinous crime of rape forced our Indian Legislation to introduce a new law and thus, Indian Parliament came up with a new law which is known as “ Juvenile Justice ( Care and Protection),Act 2015.

The Introduction of this Act has replaced the existing juvenile laws and has introduced some remarkable changes as follows;

 One of the remarkable changes is juvenile under the age group of 16 to 18 years should be tried as the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2015 was passed by Lok Sabha on 7th May, 2015; was passed by Rajya Sabha on 22nd December, 2015 and received Presidential assent and came into force on 31st December 2015, to whole India except the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Article 15 (3):  It allows the State to make special provisions for children and women.This view is reflected in the decision of the Bombay High Court in Dattatraya Motiram vs State of Bombay (55 B.L.R. 323) where Chagla C.j. held that the State could discriminate in favour of women against men but it could not discriminate in favour of men against women.

Article 21-A: The state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years.Its main object was to abolish illiteracy from the country.Thus in Unni KrishanVS State of U.P. (1993 1 SCC , 645) the supreme court had observed that education under the age of 14 was passed as fundamental right under constitution of India.

Article 23: Prohibition of traffic in human beings , begars and other similar forms of forced labour.Here traffic in human beings means buying and selling men and women like goods which also includes immoral traffic in women and children for immoral purposes.

One such case is of Deens vs union of India  in this labours were taken from prisoners without paying proper remuneration in form of forced labour which is violative in article 23so in these prisoner are entitled to get reasonable wages for their work for which court was under duty to enforce their claim.

Article 24: Prohibition of the employment of children below and the age of fourteen

years in factories, mines and other hazardous employments.As we all know children are the assets of the nation thats why this provision is certainly made in the interest of public health and safety of the children.

As we can see in the case of people’s union for democratic rights vs union of India the act of employment of children 1938 act was not applicable in the case of employment of children in the construction work of Asiad projects in delhi since in above given act no such construction work for children was specified. The court rejected their contention and held that construction work is hazardous under article 24 even if the construction work is not specified in the schedule to the employment of children act 1938.

Article 39(e): It directs the State to safeguard the tender age of children from entering into avocations unsuited to their age or strength.

Article 39(f): Directs the State to give opportunities and facilities for the healthy development of children and to protect childhood and youth against exploitation and moral and material abandonment.

Article 45:The state gives early childhood services and schooling to infants under the age of six. The Eighty-sixth Amendment m 2002 adopted this clause. Section 45 of the foregoing provides that the State shall endeavour to provide free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of 6 and 14 years of age as a basic fundamental right.

Article 47: It is the duty of the state to raise level of nutrition and standard of living and to improve health. And for this it would bring about prohibition of intoxicating drinks and drugs which are injurious to health except for medicinal purposes.

REASONS

 Anti – social behaviour, biological changes, psychological causes are some of the reasons which is responsible for juvenile delinquency.

• Disintegration of Family System: – In normal cases divorce of parents, lack of parental control, lack of love and affections are the major factors of juvenile delinquency.
• Economic condition and Poverty: –Due to poverty of parents or guardian fails to fulfil the needs of the child which encourages them in stealing money from homes or any other parents.
• Migration: – Migration of deserted and destitute juveniles’ boys to slums also carries some illegal activities like prostitution, smuggling of drugs or narcotics etc.
• Sex Indulgence: – The children those who have experienced sex assault or any other kind of unwanted physical assault in their early childhood may develop any kind of repulsiveness in their behaviour and mind. Too much of sex variance may lead the boys towards the crime of kidnapping and rapes etc.
• Modern Life Style: – The rapidly changing society patterns and modern living style, makes it very difficult for children and adolescents to adjust themselves to the new ways of lifestyle and are unable to differentiate between right and wrong.

TYPES

Types of Juvenile Crime: s

The three major kinds of juvenile crimes or delinquency are : 

1. violent crimes: Crimes which result in bodily injury, such as assault, rape, murder; 
2. Property crimes : Crimes which are committed when a juvenile uses force or threat of force to obtain the property of others 
3. Drug-related crimes: It involve the possession or sale of illegal narcotics.                               

DATA

Current situation:

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) relating to violent crimes are most dangerous against women. According to 2011 crime in India the number of rats committed by juveniles are just doubled over past decades that is from from 399 rapes in 2001 to 858 rapes in 2010 whereas crime in idea 2012 records doubled from 485 in 2002 to 1149 in 2011.As suggest by the data between 2011 and 2012 alone creates massive increase that is directly to 300 which is almost as much as over entire decade it alone makes our amendment imperative. Infact More than sixteen thousand juvenile cases are pending in the various Juvenile Justice.

But juvenile crimes are not only committed by boys there are many girls too who are included in such offence and intact their ratio is more then boys.Juvenile female crimes are committed who are under the age of 18 which are included for drug-abuse violations, liquor law violation, curfew, larceny, runaway, prostitution and for loitering.Girls share over al juvenile is increasing rapidly from about 15% to 29%.Its also suggested that girls are arrested disproportionately more than boys for such status offences like because of a tendency to sexualize their offences as running away & curfew violations because of a tendency to sexualize their offences and to control their behaviour under the patriarchal authority of juvenile justice system.There are also various proofs that there girls try to escape from home or streets and they are vulnerable to further sexual victimization.

There is always pros and cons in every decision or matter we deal with

Some of them are as follows:

Pros;

1. Just by ordering a convict to spend 3 years in special or correctional home who just performed heinous and grievous crimes like rape and murder is not going to stop others from committing such crimes against women.

2.     As we all know society is not static, it is dynamic. Its needs change with time to survive so stands for law it should be changed with changing society.

3.    As criminals were hiring the poor and needy minors in allurance for small amounts of money to execute their acts, because they know very well that JJ Act would be acting as a safeguard for them so for such anti social elements this amendment was made in fear.

Cons:

1. There was not a proper concrete or evidence data about crime rates for juveniles neither in India nor in another foreign country where any severe or harsher crime have helped them in lowering down of crime rate in anywhere in the world.
2. The basic aim of juvenile justice board was never to punish offenders no matter however intended or serious heinous crime it looked they just wanted to reform such offenders which too may encouraged in rising crimes.
3. Because of this new law it affected all ambigous laws which were already implemented smoothly only due to the pressure of societal outrage resulting from a single incident and didn’t give into more thoughts before actually making the amendment.

Recommendations

After such a big decision of amendment here are some suggestions which I feel can help to improve this juvenile justice system:

1. The very first thing we all can look upon is moulding our society in such a way that no juveniles could commit crimes and this can only be sorted by dealing through all circumstances smoothly and smartly but not emotionally or though any pressure.
2. Whatever act we implement it should be imposed heavily in our country so that in this pressure there is fear of committing such offences.

3.   We can also divide the juvenile system into different age groups that means different types of crime should have different juvenile age limits which would be decided by juvenile justice courts respectively.

Conclusion:

At the end , I would just like to conclude that reducing the age of the juvenile under the JJ Act is not the solution to the problem.Because if today we lower the age from 18 to 16 on the basis of nirbhaya rape case incident then what will the surety that child of 15 years wont do such heinous crimes and again we all will protest to reduce the age by 14?

So that instead of reducing the age we should remove the root cause of this crime. Because juvenile crimes are not the only reasons behind these offenders there are many more to it such as parental neglect, addiction to drugs, unemployment, poverty , love revenges and abundance of alcohol.So these issues of juvenile should be paid more attention not only by government but even society should play a major role in this act.We all not only depend on courts or its orders but complete our full responsibility by providing proper facilities , proper education , proper health care children only then we will be able to bring any change and reduce the juvenile crime in the country. Because if this issue is left untouched the condition would just get worse and there would be no way of improving it.