Juvenile In Conflict With Law

2 MEANING OF JUVENILE IN CONFLICT WITH LAW

Most children in conflict with the law have committed petty crimes or minor offences as begging,alcohol use ,vagrancy,or truancy. Some of these are known as ‘status offences’ and are not considered as crime when it is committed by adults. In addition, some children who engage in criminal behavior have been used or coerced by adults. The term ‘children in conflict with the law’ refers to anyone under 18 who comes into contact with the justice system as a result of being suspected or accused of committing an offence. Too often, prejudice related to ethnicity, social and economic status or race may bring a child into conflict with the law even when no crime has been made, and result in severe

The perception that juvenile in conflict with law is a creeping social menace is sharpened because the crimes with which the youths are most often associated are those of destruction and wanton violence where the motive is often difficult to discover. Certain other acts as such as, vagrancy, truancy ,obscenity,begging, loitering, pilfering, gambling, drinkingetc. which vicious persons very often commit it also included within the meaning of the

term. It may therefore, be inferred that a juvenile offender is an adolescent between childhood and manhood or womanhood as the case may be, who indulge in some kind of forbiddenbehavior, which if not checked in time may grow into a potential offender.

Under the Indian legal jurisprudence, A person who is under eighteen years of age; or for the purpose of proceedings and disposition because of an act of juvenile delinquency, a person who is under twenty-one years of age. The habitual commission of criminal acts or offences by a young person, especially one below the age at which ordinary criminal prosecution is

Studies have shown that in the preschool years, early behavioral problem such as serious aggression and chronic violations of rules have been linked to later delinquent behaviour. Some of the signs in very young children that have shown to be possible predictors of later delinquent behaviour are the lack of normal development in basic skills like language. Definitely all children are not properly labeled. What is considered normal behaviour in a very young child can fit into any one of the categories mentioned in below.

Incidents of violence among juveniles has been rising steadily in the past 20 years and in the wake of significant increase in the severity of juvenile crime, we find that despite efforts at recidivism, rehabilitation among juvenile offenders is very high. Studies have shown that as many as 69% of juvenile in conflict with law parolees are rearrested forcrimes within a period of six years of their release. Roughly half of all youth arrests are made on account on simple assault, theft and drug