JUVENILE JUSTICE ACT
INTRODUCTION:
“Old enough to do the crime, old enough to do the time.” This phrase has
been used by those who advocate that juvenile offenders should be treated
as adults. With crimes happening every minute, every day, the debate that
has caught momentum is related to not the crimes but who is actually doing
it. It is well acknowledged a fact that criminals are not only adults. Several
heinous offences have being committed by the juveniles.In the last few
decades, the crime rate by the children under the age of 16 years has
increased. The reason of increasing crime rate is may be due to the
upbringing environment of the child, economic conditions, lack of education
and the parental care. These are the some of the basic reasons. And the most
disappointing part is that, children (especially under the age group of 5 to 7
years) now a days are used as tool for committing the crime as at that this
stage their mind is very innocent and can easily be manipulate.
Generally a “child” means a person who has not attained the age of 18 years
and is not mature to understand that what is right and wrong. In modern era,
the penal laws of most countries have adopted the principle of ‘doli incapex’ ,
which means of knowing that act there are committing is a crime. The penal
laws also states that Only child between the age of seven to twelve age can
be convicted, provided that, the act they have committed is a heinous crime
and they have knowledge and has attained the sufficient knowledge to
understand the consequences of their act.
The increasing rates of juvenile crime in India in very concerning issue and
need to be focused upon. Although government has laid various legislation
and rules to stop the incidents of juvenile crimes but the present laws on
juveniles is not creating a deterrent effect on the juveniles and thus the
results are not fruitful and legislative intent is not accomplishing.
The frightful incident of “Nirbhaya Delhi Gang Rape case ” on December 16,
2012 shocked the whole nation and many debates were started among legal
fraternity and socialists. The main reason and issue of the debate was the
involvement of accused, who was just six months short to attain the age of
18 years. The involvement of the accused in such a heinous crime of rape
forced the Indian Legislation to introduce a new law and thus, Indian
Parliament came up with a new law which is known as “ Juvenile Justice
( Care and Protection), 2015.
JUVENILE JUSTICE (CARE AND PROTECTION) 2015 :
The Juvenile Justice act of 2015 replaced the Juvenile Justice act of 2000
because there existed a need for a more robust and effective justice system
that focused on deterrent as well as reformative approaches. The hu towards
