It sends out a wrong signal
The amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act are in conflict with the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, which is a gender-neutral act and protects both male and female children from various sexual assaults and offences. The act defines a child as any person below 18 years of age be it a boy or girl. With amendment to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2015, the boys in the age group of 16 to 18 would lose the protection provided by the POCSO Act, 2012. Several studies have shown how in the US, sending juveniles in selected cases to adult courts and jails has not deterred crime. Instead, it has deterred reform and encouraged juveniles to become criminals. One such study shows how laws transferring juveniles to the adult criminal justice system “have not been shown to deter crime”.
Juveniles are in their formative years of their life when their mind and brain develops into an adult mind. Psychologists say it can’t be determined for sure when a person becomes adult and so 18 years of age is the yardstick that is followed in majority of countries, including India, to determine their age of being adult, which is also supported by scientific evidence.
Juveniles do not have proper understanding of consequences of their acts and very often they can be lured into committing a crime or provoked to commit a crime. In such situations punishing them like adults implies serious injustice. The purpose behind having a juvenile justice system in place is to reform the juvenile criminals and bring them back to the mainstream, so that they could contribute to India’s growth. Punishing them like adults will only take away this opportunity from the government and juvenile criminals are likely to join criminal groups.
It is a travesty of justice that such a draconian law has been passed based on sensationalism and misleading facts, presenting children as the biggest danger to the safety of women in India. The actual figures show that in 2014, there were 48,193 rapes by adults compared to 1,989 by juveniles. Juveniles constituted only 4.7 per cent of all those arrested for rape. But let us not be blind to the reality of rape in India — more than 90 per cent of rapes in our country are committed by people known to women. They are raped in their homes. Stranger rapes on the streets are much less in number.
The government and the media repeatedly flashed the sensational figure of 50 per cent increase in the last 10 years in juvenile crime and made the public believe that the protective approach of juvenile justice has encouraged children to commit crimes in the absence of a deterrant. The truth is that in the last 10 years, share of juvenile crime to total crime in India increased from one per cent to 1.2 per cent and has remained static at 1.2 per cent over the last three years.
By any stretch of imagination, can these figures be the basis for national panic?
Nothing justifying passing this drastic law without a healthy discussion that takes us back to where we were a hundred years ago.
It gives a wrong message globally that India is not safe for women as young boys are potential rapists. Therefore, the need of the hour is not sending young children to jail by giving them proper coaching on dos and don’ts, legal awareness and sex education in the school with the support of NGOs.
Kumar Jahgirdar is a child right activist and is president of CRISP
Amendment takes care of child rights
Before I start elucidating the merits of amending the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000, I would like to pay my gratitude to the parents of the Delhi 2012 gangrape victim, who have, even in their suffering, continued their fight for justice and rallied the civil society in their struggle.
The horrific gangrape of a young girl by five men and a juvenile on the night of December 16, 2012, shook the nation and brought the focus on the need to make our streets safer for women and strengthen our legal system to ensure swift trial and harshest punishment for the rapists. Most importantly, it ignited the debate on lowering the age limit of juveniles involved in heinous crimes such as rape and murder, to be tried as adults.
To the credit of the Central government, it responded to the glaring lacuna in the law by passing a bill in the Lok Sabha to amend the Juvenile Justice Act. The amendment provided for lowering of the age of the juveniles accused in heinous crimes from 18 to 16. However, the unfortunate politicking by the Congress halted its passage in the Upper House. Only when, the anger of the masses erupted again on the impending release of the juvenile convict in the Delhi 2012 gangrape and murder case, did the political class decide to keep aside its differences in public interest and come together to deliberate on the amendments and pass the bill.
The National Crime Records Bureau 2014 data reveals that juvenile crimes have been on a rise. The report shows an increase in the crimes committed under the IPC by juveniles in the age group of 16-18 years amounting to 73.7 per cent of total crimes committed. Till now, the law on juvenile crimes did not make any distinction based on the severity of the crime committed. All acts of crime executed by juveniles carried almost the same level of retribution. So an adolescent caught for minor theft and a juvenile convicted of rape or murder were kept in the same reform centre and meted out similar treatment. This is in stark contrast to the youth justice system in developed countries like the UK and US. Though the upper age for minors is fixed at 18, but criminal law in both countries provides room for minors to be tried as adults in cases where crime is too serious to be dealt with within the juvenile justice system.
It is ironic that if the juvenile convict had been few months older he would have been accorded the harshest punishment as meted out to other accused in the same case. But since, he was a few months younger from turning 18, he only received a maximum sentence of three years of confinement in a youth reformatory. After completion of three years in a reform home, he has now been released, his criminal record destroyed and his identity kept undisclosed as per the provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000.
The amendment regarding the lowering of age comes with necessary checks and balances. It envisages the constitution of Juvenile Justice Board comprising psychologists and social experts that would conduct a preliminary inquiry to ascertain whether the crime of a heinous nature, as defined in the law, was committed as a “child” or as an “adult” and based on such assessment further trial would be conducted. The amendments have taken care of the rights of the victim along with juvenile offenders and a will to create strong legal apparatus to deter brutal crimes, especially against women.
Vijender Gupta is leader of the Opposition, Delhi
