,

HPNLU

HIMACHAL PRADESH NATIONAL LAW

UNIVERSITY, SHIMLA
ASSIGNMENT
COURSE BA-LLB.

SEMESTER IV

SUBJECT Sociology

TOPIC Juvenile Justice Board: A Modern Institution

ROLL NO. 1020171847

SUBMITTED BY CHANDER MOHAN ASHISH

SUBMITTED TO Dr. AMIT CHATURVEDI

Table of contents
 Introduction
 Research Methodology
 Development in the field of Juvenile Law
 Philosophical and Social Science Origins
 Spatial Description of JJB and Rehabilitation centre
 Need For a New Legal Enactment,
 Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.
 Conclusion
 Bibliography

Juvenile A Subject To Be Scrutinize

Introduction

This paper is an attempt to examine and observe Juvenile Justice Board (Mandore, Jodhpur)
as a modern institution created under a recent piece of legislature (Juvenile Justice Act,
2015). This paper will be taking in account the Foucauldian discourse analysis and will focus
on the power relationships in society in light of his work “Discipline and Punish”. Paper
mainly focuses on the shift in penal system, reforms which this institution has gone through
and few of its Spatial and Temporal characters.

He cited some of the intended and unintended consequences of the institution on the social-
legal field of society. Most of the observations that come out of this institution were totally
ironical and contradictory to my imagination and expectation. Analytical method is a
magnifying glass between researches and the ‘reality’ being studied. However, “the reality
changes when we change the research approach, or lens, through which we look at it.”

The term Juvenile Justice emerged from the word Juvenis, in Latin it means Young, so a
justice system for the young. Historically the concept of juvenile justice was derived from a
belief that the problems of juvenile delinquency in abnormal situations are not amenable to
the resolution within the framework of traditional process of criminal law1

Over the time a need felt in ensuring that juvenile justice system beside catering the needs of
young offenders only it also needs to provide specialized and preventive treatment services
like community support, harmonizing impersonal state intervention with the family,
community and institutional interventions for the children and as a means of prevention,
rehabilitation and socialization through schools and religious bodies. Studies of criminal
activity by age consistently find that rate of offences begin to rise in preadolescence or early
adolescence, reach a peak in late adolescence, and fall through young adulthood.2

Research Methodology

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:

1
Vedkumari, The Juvenile Justice In India: From welfare to Rights, New Delhi: p1
2
Working Paper “Juvenile Justice: Before and after the Onset Of Juvenile Delinquency”, 1980 Rev.1, p62-63.
The basic aim of this project is to study the Juvenile Justice Board as a modern institution.
Also, the paper tries to critically understand the shift to Penal style in contemporary times.

SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS:

The researcher has laid particular stress on Highlighting different aspects of Juvenile Justice
Board from the sociological perspective and has not dealt with legal aspect and laws related
to Juvenile in detail.

STYLE OF WRITING:

The style of writing in this paper is primarily Analytical as the researcher has tried to
problematize, identify and discuss the conventional notions and views related to this
institution.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

1. What is difference between the institutions defined in statutes and act and its Lived
dimensions? Or in other words Law in statute and Law in process.
2. Difficulties (Gender, caste, religion, Geographical area) arises when a individual
reach the institution?
3. Why state is Focusing on its Reformative Techniques and Methods Rather than
Punishing the Convict?
4. What are some of the discourses attached to this institution?
5. What result can be derived by understanding the institution from different focal point
or perspective, and not from the top to bottom or hierarchical view?

SOURCES OF DATA:

Primary data which has been collected during my two days visit (personal interaction with the
Inmates) at Juvenile justice Board (Jodhpur) and Secondary Resources in the form of Books
and Articles have been relied upon.

A Brief Overview of the Development in the field of Juvenile Laws

Juvenile Justice in India

Between 1773 -1850 many committees were established focusing on children in jails, first
law was made in 1850 to keep juveniles out of jails later the Report on All India Jail
committee 1919-1920 segregated children from criminal justice system.3

Indian laws have created four categories of persons according to their age. The criminal
liability of an accused depends upon the category in which that person falls.

 The first of these is a person below seven years of age. Section 82 of the Indian Penal
Code, 1860 states that nothing is an offence which is done by a child under seven
years of age (doli incapax). The simple reason behind giving such an exemption is the
absence of ‘mens rea’ i.e. guilty mind or criminal intent. People who at the time of
commission of the crime could not and did not know the right from the wrong should
not be penalised.
 The second category of persons is those who are between the age of seven and twelve
years. Section 83 deals with them and lays down that if an offence is committed by
such a person, it will first have to be ascertained whether the child has attained
sufficient maturity of understanding due to which he can judge the nature of his
alleged conduct and the consequences thereof.
 The persons between the age of twelve and eighteen years fall into the third category
and if an offence is committed by such a person, he shall be liable for such offence.
However, he shall not be prosecuted and punished like adult offenders, but would be
dealt with only in accordance with the provisions of the law relating to juvenile
justice.
 Lastly, a person above the age of eighteen years is criminally liable for an offence in
accordance with the normal criminal laws of the country.4

The Act comprised of provisions for providing vocational training to convicted children as
Apprentices to teach them trade, craft or employment for their rehabilitation.

PHILOSOPHICAL ORIGINS

3
Kethineni Sesha & Braithwaite Jeremy, towards a compliance model: The Indian Supreme Court and the
Attempted Revolution in Child Rights
4
Definition, Meaning, Causes and theories of Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, available at
http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/7809/9/09_chapter%202.pdf
Why is it not just and proper to treat these juvenile offenders, as we deal with the neglected
children? Why is it not the duty of the state, instead of asking merely whether a boy or a girl
has committed a specific offense, to find out what he is, physically, mentally, morally, and
then if it learns that he is treading the path that leads to criminality, to take him in charge, not
so much to punish as to reform, not to degrade but to uplift, not to crush but to develop, not to
make him a criminal but a worthy citizen. The Emergence of the thought that the child who
has begun to go wrong, who is incorrigible, who has broken a law or an ordinance, is to be
taken in hand by the state, not as an enemy but as a protector, as the ultimate guardian,
because either the unwillingness or inability of the natural parents to guide it toward good
citizenship has compelled the intervention of the public authorities. 5 It is this principle,
which, to some extent theretofore applied in Australia and a few American states. The
problem for determination by the judge is not, Has this boy or girl committed a specific
wrong, but What is he, how has he become what he is, and what had best be done in his
interest and in the interest of the state to save him from a downward career

SOCIAL SCIENCE ORIGINS

The juvenile court is conspicuously a response to the modern spirit of social justice. It is per-
haps the first legal tribunal where law and science, especially the science of medicine and
those sciences which deal with human behavior, such as biology, sociology, and psychology,
work side by side. It recognizes the fact that the law unaided is incompetent to decide what
adequate treatment of delinquency and crime is. It undertakes to define and readjust social
situations without the sentiment of prejudice. Its approach to the problem which the child
presents is scientific, objective, and dispassionate. The methods which it uses are those of
social case work, in which every child is studied and treated as an “individual”. These
principles upon which the juvenile court acts are radically different from those of the criminal
courts. In place of judicial tribunals, restrained by antiquated procedure saturated in an
atmosphere of hostility, trying cases for determining guilt and inflicting punishment
according to inflexible rules of law, we have now juvenile courts. we have now socially-
minded judges, who hear and adjust cases according not to rigid rules of law but to what the
interests of society and the interests of the child or good conscience demand. In place of
juries, prosecutors, and lawyers, trained in the old conception of law and staging
dramatically, but often amusingly, legal battles, as the necessary paraphernalia of a criminal
court, we have now probation officers, physicians, psychologists, and psychiatrists, who
5
Federal Katherine hunt, Children and law, 2013, p67.
search for the social, physiological, psychological, and mental backgrounds of the child in
order to arrive at reasonable just solutions of individual cases.6

The Idea of Individual

Individualism is commonly seen as the creation of the modern western world, a development
of Enlightened liberal values. The term individualism was first coined in the nineteenth
century, initially around 1820 in French, grew out of the general reaction to the French
revolution and to alleged source, the thought of the Enlightenment and quickly spread to
other European languages.

“The coming into being of the notion of “author” constitutes the privileged moment of
individualization in the history of ideas, knowledge, literature, philosophy and the
Sciences.”7

The invention of the printing press and movable type in the mid-fifteenth century
immeasurably enhanced the ability of individuals to spread their ideas and made it possible
for a larger public to access the written word.8

the ideal of individualism regards each individual as a moral, political, and economic
primary, meaning that each person in a civil society is by right an independent and sovereign
being and that he or she should be free to choose his or her associations voluntarily and not
have obligations or duties imposed by society without consent.

It was a time when, in Europe and in the united states, the Entire Economy of then
Punishment was redistributed. A time of innumerable projects for reform. It saw a new
theory of law and crime, a new moral or political justification of the right to Punish; Old laws
were Abolished, Old Customs died Out. ‘Modern’ Codes were planned or drawn up. It was a
new age for penal justice. The disappearance of torture as a public spectacle. Today we rather
inclined to ignore it; perhaps it has been attributed too readily and too emphatically to a
Process of ‘humanization’.

Punishment was thought to Equal, if not to exceed, in savagery the crime itself. Punishment
had gradually ceased to be a spectacle. And whatever theatrical elements it still retained were
now downgraded.

6
Ibid.
7
Foucault Michel, Foucault Reader pg.101 (Rabinow Paul,1984).
8
Individualism, encyclopedia.com, (05,12, 2019, 6:35), https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/united-states-
and-canada/us-history/individualism.
Those who carry out the penalty tend to become an autonomous sector (in our case JJB);
justice is relieved of responsibility for it by a bureaucratic concealment of the penalty itself.

Punitive practices had become more reticent. One no longer touched the body, or at least as
little as possible, and then only to reach something other than the body itself. It might be
objected that imprisonment, confinement, forced labor, penal servitude, prohibition from
entering certain areas, deportation which have occupied so important a place in modern penal
systems are 'physical' penalties: unlike fines, for example, they directly affect the body. The
body now serves as an instrument or intermediary. Physical pain, the pain of the body itself,
is no longer the constituent element of the penalty. From being an art of unbearable
sensations punishment has become an economy of suspended rights. a whole army of
technicians took over from the executioner, the immediate anatomist of pain: warders,
doctors, chaplains, psychiatrists, psychologists, educationalists; by their very presence near
the prisoner, they sing the praises that the law needs: they reassure it that the body and pain
are not the ultimate objects of its punitive action. Today a doctor must watch over those
condemned to death, right up to the last moment – thus juxtaposing himself as the agent of
welfare, as the alleviator of pain, with the official whose task it is to end life. Emergence of
whole new morality concerning the act of punishing.

SPATIAL DESCRIPTION
1. Outside the main office both side were lined with benches. Where the counsels of
next Case and client wait for the proceeding. During this period of time many
Discourse come into existence. Like which
judge is taking the cases and what will be
decision or possible decree in the case. Like, on
my first Day visit A Counsel were consoling his
client by saying that ‘You are lucky that today
Mrs. Reeya Sharma (Civil Judge) were taking
the cases. As a women she has a soft corner
towards Children. So don’t worry!’. Convention
held understanding and Prejudices of what
would/could a women “must be” can be clearly seen.
a. On one side of the Hall a Raised Platform is made for the setting of Magistrate and
two other Members (which constitute a Panel). Why this Platform is made? Is there
need to construct it to a height above the ground level, which is the same case in
almost every court? Is it a unintended act? Does it has its effect on the person on the
other side?
There maybe so many answer to these questions in my opinion possible answer can be
follow: but one thing is clear that it is obviously not a decision taken into vacuum or
without any intention. A space doesn’t exist but it is constituted.
Spacial setting has Great impression on the Person coming into that space. Magistrate
is deem to be seen as an authority who will secure the end of justice. It has vested
 with power and is
therefore competent
authority to take
decision. They are
certain code of
conduct one have to
follow inside a
courtroom, one of
them is that person
entering the
courtroom have to give respect to the magistrate by doing any act with prior
permission of the competent authority. If those reason has to be fulfilled such
authority must be setting on raised platform.
2. Characteristics of modern Bureaucracy (Max Weber) is conspicuous from vary
moment you entered the juvenile Justice Board.
a. Files (formal Rules and regulations): Is the clear indication of Accountable Practices.
Document ensure reliable and predictable behavior.
b. Hierarchical management structure and division of labor: power, levels and hierarchy
is visible inside the courtroom. From magistrate to officials working as an inter
mediator between court and other institutions. Each of them they are assigned with
defined responsibilities in specialized field.

Increasing bureaucratic practices is the result of demand coming out of changed social
order.

JJB open only twice a week (Monday and Friday). Therefore they were a bunch of Cart
gather around the Main gate of JJB. Like carts selling street snacks Pani-Puri, Matka
Kulfi and Cybercafé for printout and Xerox which is very essential shop for the client
who need urgent photocopy and photos. Only for two days in week but we can say that
this institution is giving rise to these small economies.

What can further be inferred from this scenario is that an institution is not constructed by
brick and cement rather by the people and the proceedings which takes place in those
two days. That’s how state is reproduced every time Proceeding has been taken place in
JJB.
LIVED DIMENSION OF THIS INSTITUTION

Observation Home and Child welfare Committee

Q. Why there is need of Observation Homes and Rehabilitation centers when the same
purpose (if detention) is served by normal prison?

It was realised even in the late nineteenth century that it would not be conducive for the
growth and rehabilitation of convicted children to send them to ordinary prisons where
they might mix with hardened adult criminals to their detriment. Consequently, the
Reformatory School Act 1897 was enacted which provided for the constitution of
Reformatory Schools for young persons (boys not above the age of 15 years) convicted
and sentenced to imprisonment by courts.

The Report of the Indian Jails Reforms Committee 1919-1920 contemned the presence of
children in prisons and recommended the enactment of a special law for children.

Total inmates in the observation at the time of Visit: 68.

There were total Four Halls (Rooms/ Wards). Each room provided with various
Equipments like Television which let inmates to remain connected with the outside
world. Daily newspaper and landline service is also provided once a week. Daily
Checkup (Nurse) as told by the authorities so to cross check when I asked one of the
inmate the same question sarcastic answer “Sir Ji Madam (Nurse) to Ek Mahine mein ek
baar aajaye to bhi badi baat hogi. Proper food menu from breakfast to lunch is displayed
outside the kitchen but inmates are lucky to get Dal- Rice and one season Vegetable.
Water purifier is attached near the kitchen. To my surprise I found the bathrooms and
washroom were cleaned and that also with a geyser attached to it. A common open area
for gathering at the time of Morning Prayer and sane has been used for playing badminton
but to the surprise it can’t be possible without Racket and shuttle. There was a complaint
box though I don’t think it has been used for once. Their whole day is guided by certain
rules and regulation, to build into them a muscle memory. Which is expected to follow by
them after getting released from here. Counseling session takes place after every 15 days.

Difficulties faced by the inmates and there family.

1. Major Issues was related to Production of Juvenile in front of Penal timely.

 2. Legal Service clinic is functioning proper. Who has the task to provide legal aid and
hiring a lawyer and bear expense of the same? All though legal service authority
claimed to provide completely free legal but Family of many of these inmates are
unaware of this fact and therefore PLV (Para-Legal Volunteers) Charged different
Charges/fees on name of file charge and document matters.
3. There is only one Juvenile Justice Board in whole District therefore family relatives
have to travel every time during trial or usual meeting all way to jodhpur. (Most of the
inmates are from the neighboring villages like Pali which is 40km away from
Jodhpur).

Data Regarding their Wards:

ROOM AGE NAME ASSIGNED TO NUMBER OF INMATES

NO. THE ROOM
st
1 (7-14) Bhagat Singh (UT) 4
2nd (12-16) Swami Viveknandan (UT) 10
3rd (16-18) Chandar Shekhar (UT) 8
4th SPECIAL HOME Subhas Chandar Bose 6
(Sentenced)
*UT: Under Trial Inmates.

1. The questions arise why there is need to separate the inmates according to their Age?
2. Why these rooms are assigned with specified freedom fighters name? Possible reason/
intention behind this act?

“Surround yourself with really good people. I think that's an important thing. Because the
people you surround yourself are a reflection of you.” By:-Aaron Rodgers.

Article 39 (f): the children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy
manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and guaranteed protection of childhood
and youth against exploitation and against moral and material abandonment.

I hope it is now quite clear that Environment has potent effect and Guiding effect on the
Individuals. That’s why they have grouped with mates of their age. If they have been
allowed to be with the older ones who have been convicted for murder or Rape, you can
imagine the possible affect on the small ones.
 Freedom fighters are the people who not only fought for the country but also bring
change to the society (correctional changes). Therefore intention behind assigning names
to the room is that it will inspire the inmates to first change themselves and if possible
bring changes to the society.

One of the instance I want to cite here that during my interaction with the inmates one of
them come up with a reply “Apun ne 2 ko Tapkaya”. I was totally surprised that how can
a boy of 14 years is capable of doing such act and then also without a inch of shame or
guilt.

You can look at the picture of me with the inmates behind us the wall has many cartoon
characters (like Mickey Mouse, Tiger, Monkey, Dinosaur etc).

Now the question arises:

1. Why they painted the wall on the first place? Let’s assume they have done it in a
usual manner,
2. Why didn’t can write some inspirational quotes or something else Rather they choose
to go for Pictures/ Visual characters.
3. Does they have done the same thing in case of normal adult prison or jail?

I think Nicholas Mirzoeff have the answer in his work “Visual Character”. Seeing is a great
Deal More than Believing these days”. The Visual Culture is not just a part of your everyday
life, It is your everyday life. Martin Heidegger: A world Picture…does not mean a picture of
the world but the world conceived and grasped as a picture. “World become a picture in all”.

Yet the visual is not simply the medium of information and mass culture. It offers a sensual
immediacy that cannot be rivalled by print media or written text, the very element that makes
visual imagery of all kinds distinct from texts. This is not at all the same thing as simplicity
but there is an undeniable impact on the first sight that a written text cannot replicate.

Being in an environment which has visual characters and painting has a significant
improvement in “psychological resilience" as well increased levels of "functional
connectivity" in the brain.
Organisation secrete their environment object has tendency to guiding and shaping
conduct.

1. The name of institution is displayed/written in a language (Hindi) which can be

understand easily by the public which going to come into contact with this institution.
Major percentage of the population which approach this institution belongs to rural
area thus either illiterate or has elementary education.
2. As you entered the premises you saw a CCTV camera fitted at left top corner taking
into surveillance whole of main gate and parking area. There were more similar
cameras all round which is operated from the security guard room.
3. I found walkie-talkie (modern device for communication) in hand of the security
guard.
4. All the administrative work is done by the computers and most of the accountable
practises which earlier done in files and register are now replaced by these computers.

Amendments to Laws Related to Juvenile Justice

 Juvenile Juvenile
Justice Justice
Juvenile
(Care and (Care and
Justice Act
Protection of Protection of
1986
Children) Children)
Act, 2000 Act, 2015

The Delhi gang rape case have triggered many major changes in the criminal system of India.
Rajya Sabha has passed the Juvenile Justice Bill 2014 after the post of many people in the
case of Nirbhaya where the juvenile convict was released. The government of India replaced
the Juvenile Justice Act 2000 in 15th January 2016. This act helps the children who are in
conflict with laws and protect them from the harsher punishments of the district and high
court.

This is an Act to consolidate and amend the law relating to children in need of care and
protection, by catering to their basic needs through development, treatment, and social re-
integration, by adopting child-friendly approaches. One of the main aim to pass the
amendment was that the minor of age 16-18 years were committing heinous crimes such as
rape, etc.

Firstly, the minor accused of age more than sixteen should present before the Juvenile Justice
Board and then the Board will decide whether to send the Juvenile for trial as an adult or to
send an accused to the rehabilitation centre. This method is judged on the mental and
physical ability of the child.

Secondly, the act of juvenile justice treats a minor of age sixteen-eighteen years as an adult if
he has committed any heinous crime (The Bill defines ‘heinous offences’ as those “for which
the minimum punishment under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) or any other law for the time
being in force is imprisonment for seven years or more) in a conflict of the law. Minor who
have committed a serious offence may be tried as an adult only if he is apprehended after the
age of twenty-one years.
Thirdly, “A new clause on fair trial is added, under which the assessment will look into the
special needs of the child, under the tenet of a fair trial under a child-friendly atmosphere.

Fourthly, no life-imprisonment or death sentence to a juvenile.

There are few more Changes but there are less relevant for our discussion.

Inferences derived from Amended acts:

1. The new Act strengthens the protective approach provided by the juvenile justice
system towards children in conflict with law as well as children in need of care and
protection.
2. Offences have been categorized as petty/ serious/ heinous offences. If they is only one
category of the crime, then the probability of juvenile being taken into the preview of
this act is higher and it would be very difficult for the judge to decide the quantum of
Punishment or measure to be taken. Hence this classification made easy to decide
whether juvenile is to be treated as an adult or to be send to a rehabilitation centre.
3. The child will be segregated according to age, gender, physical and mental status and
nature of offence. (Pointed out in the description part)

4. The Act puts a embargo on capital punishment or life imprisonment. It is better

relatable in the light of landmark case of Mithu v State of (struck down section 303 of
IPC) and Article 21 (No person can be deprived of his life except according to
procedure established by law). Does that mean Person can be hanged to death if there
a Legal enactment or Law?
Maneka Gandhi v Union of India changed the whole legal scenario, it said that the
Law in Question or which is imposing the restriction on the rights of the people must
be a Law that is Just Fair and Reasonable. Which in itself establish the concept of
Due Process of Law in India.
If a law dealing with adult (IPC) can’t impose a death sentence how can a law dealing
with Juvenile can do the same, therefore juvenile act of 2000 has been Amended.

One of thing which need our attention is the Epistemic violence that has been done by this
Legal Enactment a person who is one day older from 18 days has been considered as Adult
trailed by the usual penal code and the individual who is few day away from his 18 birthday
is going to be trailed by the juvenile act. Why there is this huge discrimination between the
two individual who has age difference of just two days. As the rules made by observation
home inmates assigned to rooms as per their age and status (under trial/sentenced) but in
reality what I noticed that as the number changes or some under trial got sentenced as per
rules he is ought to shift to the special room(4th Subhas Chandar Bose) but he belongs to
room 2 and 3 (age group 12-16 or maybe 7-14) therefore due to this confusion security guard
let them stay in the same room in which they are staying previously.

Rakesh Yadav, the Clerk has the link with the Legal Service Authority’s Legal aid cell. So
case which is transferred from DLSA (District legal service authority) are coming rakesh
with then handed over to the Yashwin Bano (Lawyer). Due to this whole transaction the
social capital of Rakesh Yadav Inreased significantly during his 5 years service in JJB,
Everybody know him in JJB and High Court also. On second I need some printout so asked
Rakesh where to go and he suggest me to go to cybercafé shop and take his name “Rakesh Ne
bheja hai”. And he goanna charge you reasonably.

The answer is not given by modernity. This is some of the crisis of modernism.

Consequences of Juvenile Justice Board on the Society

Society is a ‘web-relationship’ and social change obviously means a change in the system of
social relationship where a social relationship is understood in terms of social processes and
social interactions and social organizations. Thus, the term, ‘social change’ is used to indicate
desirable variations in social institution, social processes and social organization. It includes
alterations in the structure and functions of the society. Closer analysis of the role of law vis-
à-vis social change leads us to distinguish between the direct and the indirect aspects of the
role of law.9

1. Juvenile Laws plays an important indirect role in regard to social change by shaping a
direct impact on society. For example: A law setting up a compulsory educational
system. A child or individual who would have not ever studied the books now have to
go through compulsory Elementary education.

9
Importance of law in society, legaldesire.com, (05,23,2019, 10:45), https://legaldesire.com/article-
importance-of-law-in-society/.
 A boy (Kalu Ram) who would not have thought of watching News channels, read
newspaper and Books of political science if he would not be convicted under JJ act but
now he is engaged with these kind of stuff.

2. Rajasthan is still one of those geographical areas where Caste system is still prevalent.
So for a Boy of upper caste (Jaat) to stay, eat and play with a Lower caste boy (Kumar
caste) would not be possible if he won’t be in observation home. So indirectly though
law has succeeded in establishing the principal of Article 14, 15, and 17. It would
have not been possible if they have directly insist them to blend with each other.

Nonetheless, when law cannot bring about change without social support, it still can
create certain preconditions for social change.

3. Large number of the inmates come inside under Although there are strict surveillance and
security in the observation home still many a times inmates are found with either cigarette
and even some times with Drugs like Cannabis and Opium. I interned for 10 days in
SPYM(Society for promotion of youth and masses), One of the volunteer who was a drug
addict in past shared experience that the level of addiction goes so high that we can even
kill anybody for the money to buy material. So drug addict has their own “Jugad”. So it
could be possible that an inmate would be unaware of these things before coming to this
institution but he becomes one maybe either from curiosity or peer pressure.
4. As every individual has certain social capital/status in a society, every inmate also has
certain status inside the observation home. Now the question they are neither doing any
occupation nor do they have any materials things to contain symbolic capital so how does
they posses their status. This is decided from the fact that how much heinous offence
juvenile has done, degree of cruelty he has done on the victim, and quantum of
punishment. As I stated above one of the inmate (Manish Choudhary). Who is sentenced
for 3 years of reformation period in this observation home for the charges of murder. This
boy is considered as the “Boss” so to say for all of other inmates. Many Incidence of
fights inside the wards have been noticed, in which every time Manish is one of them. He
can wore anybody’s cloths, play and watch whatever he likes so far as he want.

We can’t find these processes which are happening inside the observation home daily, in
statutes and provision of the Act. Because as Elizabeth marts said Law as statute and law
in process is totally different.
Conclusion-

Reformative methods have proved useful in case of juvenile delinquents, as they seem to
respond favorably to the reformative method of punishment. Criminal is essentially a product
of conflict between the interests of individuals in the society. As Gandhi ji said, “Hate the sin
and not the sinner”. It should be a guide in the administration of criminal justice.

In the words of Justice Krishna Iyer: “a Holistic view of sentencing and a finer perception of
the effect of imprisonment give short shrift to draconian severity & self-defeating. Perhaps
the time has come for Indian Criminologists to rely more on Patanjali Sutra as a scientific &
curative for crimogenic factors than on the blind jail term set out in the Penal code & that
may be why Western researchers are now seeking Indian Yogic ways of normalizing the
individual & the group.”

Mr. Justice Krishna Iyer focuses on certain elemental factors which are of great significance
for criminology thoughts particularly so far as our country is concerned to him the Gandhian
diagnosis is the key to the pathology of delinquency & therapeutic role of punishment. It
treats the whole man as a healthy man & every man is born good and so the modern
principles of penology and reform and rehabilitation of the offender ought to guide and
inform the Indian criminal courts.

The spirit of correctional philosophy in criminology is rightly described by Justice Krishna

Iyer, “Every saint has a past and every sinner a future, never write off the man wearing the
criminal attire but remove the dangerous degeneracy in him, restore his retarded human
potential by holistic healing of his fevered, fatigued or frustrated inside and by repairing the
repressive, though hidden, injustice of the social order which is vicariously guilty of the
criminal behavior of many innocent convicts. Law must rise with life and jurisprudence
responds to humanism.”
In Sunil Batra, Karuna (Mercy) is treated as the mainspring of jail justice which would
obviate torture some behavior which spoils the reformatory and correctional process.
According to Krishna Iyer, “fair treatment will enhance the chance of rehabilitation by
reactions to arbitrariness.”

Modern times understands the need to reform the criminal & he commits crimes because of
social; inequalities & injustice i.e. poverty, illiteracy, squalor & disease. The offender is to be
treated as a sick man to be healed rather than as a malefactor to be chastised. Further
Socialization of the offender would eliminate the factors which motivated him to commit the
crime & he gets a chance of leading a normal life in society.