Fundamentals of Juvenile Crime Law

Juvenile Crime Law is a criminal law and subcategory of juvenile law. Although a type of criminal law, juvenile crime law only deals with the individuals who are under-age. In criminal law they are treated very diligently and differently than adults, and usually have separate system of law.

Individuals who are below the age of 18 years and come into conflict with the law are, in India, described as “children in conflict with law” rather than as criminals. In India, juvenile offences are governed by a single central law, the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, which replaced the earlier Act of 2000 and applies uniformly across the country. The underlying principle is the doctrine of parens patriae, which grants the State the authority to protect and act on behalf of persons who are legally unable to protect themselves.

The doctrine of parens patriae authorises the State to step in and act as a parent towards a child who has committed an offence, the main purpose being to provide maintenance, care, custody, protection and rehabilitation of the child. To give effect to this, the JJ Act, 2015 requires every district to constitute a Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) to deal with children alleged to be in conflict with law, and a Child Welfare Committee (CWC) to deal with children in need of care and protection. The Board, which includes a Magistrate and two social workers, decides how the child is dealt with, including inquiry, conditions of supervision and the orders that may be passed.

The juvenile justice system has its own procedures and rules that apply only to children. The JJ Act, 2015 classifies offences into petty offences, serious offences and heinous offences depending on the punishment prescribed for them. A significant change introduced by the 2015 Act is that a child between 16 and 18 years of age who is alleged to have committed a heinous offence may, after a preliminary assessment by the Juvenile Justice Board of the child’s mental and physical capacity and ability to understand the consequences of the offence, be tried as an adult before the Children’s Court. For all other children, and for petty and serious offences, the matter is dealt with entirely by the Board with a focus on reform rather than punishment.

The JJ Act, 2015 deals not only with children in conflict with law but also with “children in need of care and protection” — for example, children who are abandoned, orphaned, neglected, abused, or found begging or living on the street. Such children are produced before the Child Welfare Committee, which can order their care, protection, rehabilitation and, where appropriate, restoration to their family or placement in a children’s home. The 2015 Act also overhauled the law on adoption, and the Juvenile Justice (Amendment) Act, 2021 (in force from 1 September 2022) transferred the power to issue adoption orders from the civil courts to the District Magistrate.

When the Juvenile Justice Board completes its inquiry and finds that a child has committed an offence, the Act lists the orders it may pass. These are reformative rather than punitive and include allowing the child to go home after advice or admonition, releasing the child on probation of good conduct under the care of a parent, guardian or fit person, directing the child to perform community service, ordering payment of a fine, or, in suitable cases, sending the child to a special home for a maximum period of three years. Children dealt with by the Board are kept entirely separate from adult offenders.

Under Indian law a child is never sent to an ordinary prison or adult jail. Children in conflict with law are placed in observation homes, special homes or places of safety run under the JJ Act. Even where a child of 16 to 18 years is tried as an adult for a heinous offence, the law expressly bars any sentence of death or of life imprisonment without the possibility of release. The juvenile justice system is set up to handle these children with extra care, focusing on rehabilitation and reintegration into society, not punishment.