Expert flays move to amend Juvenile Justice Act

Bengaluru: The Central government’s decision to amend the Juvenile Justice Act, 2000 and lower the age of juvenile offenders from 18 to 16 years (for heinous offences) will only create more young criminals in society, said Father Anthony Sebastian of City-based Empowerment of Children and Human Rights Organisation (Echo) – the only non governmental organization (NGO) in the country, which has been authorized by the Karnataka Government to run independently the special home for juveniles in conflict with law on behalf of the State.

“The move is against the spirit of the core objective of the JJ Act, which protects the rights of the children involved in crime and will prove disastrous for a vast majority of children, who deserve a second chance to reform and mainstream themselves,” he said, while adding that the rate of conviction under the JJ Act is less than two per cent. “This alone speaks about the percentage of juvenile offenders, who have committed heinous crimes,” said Father Anthony, who has been a two-term member of the Juvenile Justice Board, Bengaluru and has a doctoral research on juvenile delinquency to his credit.

“Echo has been running the special home for children, who are in conflict with law at Sumanahalli in the City for the last four years and has reformed 1,000 children, who were convicted under the JJ Act for heinous crimes such as rape, murder and dacoity. Not even one child has gone back to crime after completing his conviction sentence at the home and majority of them are now employed,” said the priest-turned-social-activist.

He added that there was enough evidence to prove that appropriate care and treatment given to these children will transform them completely barring very few, who may have behavioural disorders and need psychiatric treatment and counselling from institutes like the National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences (Nimhans).

92% delinquents from poor backgrounds

• Echo recently conducted a pilot pan India study on juvenile delinquents, which was supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the statistics revealed that adolescents in the age group of 16 and 18 years contributed to 64 per cent of crimes committed by juvenile delinquents
• Out of these 11 per cent committed heinous crimes and four per cent were rape accused
• Another study of over 3,000 juvenile offenders from Karnataka, Goa, Delhi and Mumbai revealed that 92 per cent of these children were from poor socio-economic backgrounds