Understanding Juvenile Crime &Justice in Delhi: Study of the Functioning of Juvenile Drugs De-addiction & Rehabilitation Centre and Juvenile Justice Board

Abstract

Children are considered to be a vulnerable section of society due to initial years of an individual are their formative years as well as the years where their behaviour is also suggestible to their surrounding and circumstances at a higher incidence than adults. Multitude of children are subject to violent atmospheres at their households due to weak familial structures and many of the children who end up committing crimes or getting caught up in situations which are out of their control, yet they due to such activities result in them being arrested and being detained by the state authorities. Their immature understanding of the acts and offences they commit also is brought out in many studies over the years, due to which a separate juvenile justice system was set up for addressing children who end up committing crimes. Many of the children who come into the juvenile justice system as juveniles in conflict with the law in Delhi belong to economically weaker sections, and are residents of slums and informal settlements of the city. The children who are detained on commission of crime have poor socio-economic backgrounds, have not finished their primary education, have dropped out from school, are engaged in criminal activities, most often in groups or „gangs‟, such as gambling, smoking, consuming drugs and other such „delinquent‟ or criminal behaviour. It becomes necessary to understand the children‟s experiences upon coming into contact with the juvenile justice system, the circumstances surrounding the commission of their crime, the influence of peer groups and the activities undertaken by the individual in the group in the living experience of the child. The functioning of the system itself needs an appraisal with an understanding of the practices of rehabilitation and reintegration. The follow-up on the children who leave the system and dearth community-based support for ex-addicts and CCLs is also a matter of concern.