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Rehabilitation Not Retribution Should be the Focus of Juvenile Justice

Rehabilitation Not Retribution Should be the Focus of Juvenile Justice 

An editorial on Government’s recently passed JUVENILE JUSTICE BILL 2015…..

(Click here to read Juvenile justice Care and Protection of Children bill 2015)

Highlights of the editorial:

·         The reform that came had certain much needed features like an expansion of the ambit of rape, and defining offences such as stalking and voyeurism.

·         The tendency to effect legal reform as a response to a singular event, when the nation is in the throes of emotion, is/was worrying.

·         Bill’s most controversial provision allows those who have completed the age of 16 years to be tried as adults, if they have committed a heinous crime.

·         The idea of having a juvenile justice framework is defeated, if we punish children as adults or keep them in contact with adult offenders.

·         Article 2 of the UNCRC shows that the principle of non-discrimination enshrined in it, does enjoin the State to treat all children in conflict with law equally.

·         The NCRB data shows that in terms of overall crimes committed by juveniles under IPC, during the period of 2004-2014, there has been a significant increase.

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·         over the last ten years (2003-2013), crimes committed by children as a percentage of all crimes committed in the country, have risen from 1.0% to 1.2%’.

·         Since in 2011, the Juvenile Justice Board ordered the SJPU (Special Juvenile Police Unit) to take stringent action against adults pushing juveniles into organized crimes.

·         Since the provisions of the POCSO Act do not recognize a child’s consent, the 17-year-old boy could potentially be tried as an adult. 

·         The new Bill that enables children, between 16 and 18, to be tried as adults is conceptually flawed. Its intention is to punish those who have committed heinous crimes, while its focus should be on alternative treatments (such as reformation, rehabilitation and re-integration with society).

·         we should focus more on preventing new crimes, rather than punishing the ones already committed.

·         The idea is not to establish harsher or milder punishments, but rather having an effective system that would lead to fewer victims

CLICK HERE TO READ THE COMPLETE EDITORIAL

Why a juvenile convict must be reformedbut should not be treated as an Adult?



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