Juvenile delinquency-I

Juvenile delinquency has become a global epidemic and is spreading in developing and developed societies in both organized and semi-organized manners. In any civilized society, the criminal justice system has the highest premium as it guarantees the rule of law and fair play to its citizens. Economic growth is unthinkable in a country where there is civil strife and danger of one's life and property.
The delinquent person is guilty of anti-social conduct, perhaps less serious than criminal of misconduct. The commonly quoted determinants of juvenile delinquency are broken homes, inhospitable environment, bad company of peer/ school group, slums, criminal neighbourhood, poverty, and unemployment.
In Pakistan, money, land, sexual assault, illiteracy, honour killing, old enmity, and drugs are the main factors causing juvenile delinquency. The recent emergence of militancy "Deeni Madaris" (religious education institutions) has further exacerbated the situation. These institutions impart instructions in militancy and sectarian hatred to young persons below eighteen years of age. The Cyber Net has developed a tendency of gang wars among the youth of both developed and developing nations and Pakistan is no exception.
The dearth of scientific literature on crime, especially juvenile delinquency in Pakistan is attributed to the lack of reliable information. Juvenile delinquency is becoming a serious social evil. There is scanty scientific information on actual rate of juvenile delinquency due to its lesser official notice by our criminal justice forums (police, prosecution bars, courts, prisons, probation and non-existent after care service, community rehabilitation etc.). We still are at ridiculous random for arrest, conviction, prosecution, prevention and control of offences of juveniles in Pakistan. People have a sympathetic social attitude for law violations of our youthful offenders. People do not report and police do not register, investigate and or send to courts juveniles' violations. The courts do not charge-sheet and convict them for their misdemeanors, delinquencies, minor offences and even serious crimes, except in a few cases. Advanced cultures provide socio-psychic-therapy for re-integration of the performance youthful for their rowdyism and misdeeds. They keep vigilance on their youth just to check their perspective criminal tendencies. But we ignore even their heinous crimes.
In the light of above discussion, it seems imperative to make a serious beginning to address serious social problems. Juvenile delinquency is becoming a serious social taboo. The social dimension of the problem has serious repercussions on the moral fabric of the society. The family unit is tearing apart and parents are generally worried about the future of their offsprings' in such a hostile environment. The surge of sectarian violence, especially among teenagers, has further exacerbated the growing evil of youth delinquency. Thus, if the increasing trend of youth delinquency is unabated and un-noticed, this will further create socio-economic problems of stunning proportions.
The international community looks down upon us as an unlawful society and breeding ground for terrorism. This is not a happy augury The present article is based on data from two districts of the Punjab - Faisalabad and Bahwalpur. In the Punjab Province, two Borstal institutions and juvenile jails are working for rehabilitation of juvenile convicts.
The total population of juvenile convicts having 221 respondents was taken for the study. The data depicts that Bahawalpur division has the highest (22 percent) number of juvenile delinquents in the Punjab Province followed by Multan (18 percent), Lahore (15 percent), DG Khan (14 percent) and Faisalabad (13 percent). The spread of delinquency in other divisions is nominal.
The ages of the juvenile convicts vary from 10 to 18 years. The range of respondents ages varies from 10 to 12 (1.4 percent), 13 to 14 years (5.4 percent), 15 to 16 years (21.3 percent) and 17 to 18 years (71.9 percent). The data revealed that most of the respondents were between the ages of 17 to 18 years.
Of the total respondents, 60 percent are from rural areas followed by 32 percent from cities and nearly 8 percent from towns. The juvenile crime is seen more in rural areas. This perhaps is due to high poverty and low literacy rate as compared to urban areas. Nearly 41 percent of the houses are katcha and 52 are pakka and the remaining are mixed. About 37 percent of the houses are located in the congested areas followed by clean residential area (35.6 percent) and 22.6 percent are in the katachi abadis. The sanitary condition exists in 57 houses and the remaining lack such facilities
The major occupation of juveniles' fathers is farming (35 percent), shop keeper (23 percent), village mueens (17 percent), government jobs (15 percent), while the remaining include private jobs and laborers. The comparison shows that 18 percent Rajput, 15 percent Jats, 14 percent village mueens, 11 percent Baluch, about 8 percent are Khokhar, Arain 8 percent, Sheikh and Mugal 8 percent, Gujjar, and Syed 5 percent and rest of them were Awans. The predominant religion of the respondents was Islam (97 percent) followed by 3 percent Christian.
Nearly 87 percent of juveniles' fathers have single marriage, 12.7 percent have two wives and only one case showed three wives. Majorities of the respondents' fathers were alive (87 percent), while fathers of 13 percent were dead. Of the deceased fathers, 7 percent died before the arrest of their children and 6 percent died after the arrest. The age of the juveniles varied from 16 and 18 years when their father died. The health of the respondents' fathers was good to excellent in majority of the cases (63 percent).
Father's attitude matters much in upbringing the child but sometimes too much pampering which leads to irrational social behaviour and juvenile delinquency, spoils the child. Fathers generally tend to protect the wrong action of their children. In this analysis, majority of the parents are village mueens and rural poor.
The data on monthly income showed that 43.4 percent were Rs. 1000-4000 income group, 25 percent in Rs. 4001-7000 income group, 21 percent Rs. 7001-10000 income level, 6 percent in Rs.10001-13000, and 4 percent in Rs.13000- and above income groups.
The data revealed that 86 percent of the respondents have committed crimes for the first time where as 1.1 percent, 9 percent and 1.4 percent committed crimes for the second, third and fourth times, respectively. The analysis showed that 67 percent of the respondents committed crime on the motivation of their associates, 12.7 percent and 21 percent committed crimes on the motivation of their family members and relatives, respectively.
It is alarming to note that 71 percent are involved in murder cases, 4.5 percent committed theft, dacoity or pick pocketing, 4.5 percent involved in kidnapping, 14.5 percent and 3.2 percent indulge in Zina and narcotics activities, respectively.
The large number of juveniles committed crimes in retaliation to some social or individual injustice. Poverty or lack of resources force 10 percent of the respondents to commit crimes, 3.2 percent, 11 percent, 2.3 percent, 19 percent, 4.1 percent, 12.2 percent, 3.2 percent, 1.4 percent and 10 percent of the respondents committed crimes due to personal aspirations, pressure of associates, to fulfil the dream of becoming rich overnight, land disputes, provocation, accidents, self defense, drug addiction and sexual, respectively.
(TO BE CONCLUDED)