Juvenile Delinquency in India: A Socio-Legal Analysis of Causes, Patterns and Preventive Framework

A child when born is innocent, but because of lack of good care and supervision, as well as negative social and environmental factors, his mind becomes prone to criminal behaviour. These factors can range from criminal parents to abusive guardians or abusive caretaker of orphanages. These factors have always been present since the age of kings and rulers whereby these Kings used children to their dirty work, or not cared about them at all. Due to the poor living conditions of these children, they were forced to adopt horrible ways to survive, but never really saw a ray of hope to their miserable life. Criminal code violations as well as certain patterns of behaviour that are inappropriate for children and young adolescents are referred to as juvenile delinquency. The four types of delinquency are individual delinquency whereby only one individual is involved and the cause of the delinquent act can be traced back to the individual delinquent, group supported delinquency, organized delinquency, and situational delinquency whereby the cause is attributed not to the individual. Juvenile Delinquency is one of the most significant social problem globally. It has been one of the key reasons as to why and how lives of millions of children are ruined each day. The rise in Juvenile crime has a multidimensional impact. Similar to any other form of crime, while victims are considered as the most conspicuous affectee, other group that finds their place in the list are their respective family members of the victim and the society as a whole.