The Juvenile Justice System and Media

Introduction:

A youngster is born pure, but owing to a lack of adequate care and supervision, as well as unfavorable socio-cultural and environmental circumstances, his mind becomes prone to criminal behavior. It is the obligation of the state and society, as well as his parents, to ensure that the child grows up to be physically healthy, socially engaged, and cognitively aware so that he can contribute to society only to become a criminal.

“Old enough to do the crime, and old enough to fulfill the sentence,” says the narrator. This term has been used by some who feel that young criminals should be treated as adults. With crimes occurring every minute of every day, the argument that has gained traction is not about the crimes themselves, but about who is committing them. Criminals are not just adults, as is often known. Juveniles have perpetrated several horrific crimes. In reality, during the previous several decades, the crime rate among youngsters under the age of 16 has risen. However, India’s response to criminals is impacted by their age, resulting in unequal treatment. This disparity in treatment cannot be justified just based on a statistic called age. It takes into account what a juvenile’s life is like at that moment in time. Most judicial systems have classified juvenile offenses as delinquent actions to be tried inside a distinct juvenile justice system, in order to respect young people’s particular needs and immature state. The article examines several criteria that are used to decide how a juvenile offender is treated.

The Emergence of India’s Juvenile Justice System

Pre-Independence Era

In India, legislation governing the care of children goes back to the Code of Hammurabi in 1790 BC.^[1] Lord Cornwallis created the first “Ragged School” for these youngsters during the colonial government in 1843. The Criminal Procedure Act^[2] of 1898 allowed for particular handling of juvenile criminals. Probation was available for good behavior by criminals up to the age of twenty-one under the Code. The Indian Jail Committee^[3] then drafted the Indian Children Act (1919-1920). Individual provincial governments were given the authority under this act to implement separate juvenile legislation in their respective territories.

Post-Independence

The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2000^[4] was the most significant piece of post-independence law. Anyone under the age of 18 was considered a juvenile under this law, and could never be tried as an adult. This was the provision that infuriated Indians after the “Nirbhaya Delhi Gang Rape Case,” which happened on December 16, 2012, and shocked the country.

An Analysis of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act of 2015 and Recent Juvenile Offenses

The Act is founded on the ‘doli incapax’ premise. This idea is mentioned in Sections 82 and 83 of the IPC. According to this, a kid under the age of seven “lacks the ability to grasp the nature and consequences of his act,” and so lacks the requisite mens rea. Only children aged 7 to 12 can be convicted if the conduct they did is a serious crime and they have knowledge or have gained sufficient understanding to grasp the implications of their actions.^[5]

A “child” is defined as a person under the age of eighteen under Section 2, Subsection 12^[6] of The Juvenile (Care and Protection) Act, 2015. The term “child” is divided into two groups in the Act:

1.“child in conflict with law”, and

2. “child in need of care and protection”^[7]

A child who commits an offense and is under the age of 18 on the date of the offense is referred to as a “child in dispute with the law.” The “child in need of care and protection” category refers to a youngster as specified in Section 14 of the Act. However, following the modification, it was ruled that a person between the ages of 16 and 18 might be prosecuted as an adult depending on the nature of the offense. That is, the amendment established a distinction between a child and a juvenile, saying that any individual charged with a criminal offense who is between the ages of 16 and 18 is a juvenile and not a child, and so can be prosecuted as an adult in court if charged with a serious crime. If a heinous criminal element is lacking, the case is tried by the juvenile justice board.

To comprehend this historic transformation, it is necessary to acknowledge the crimes against humanity that victims have experienced and battled against in order for the courts to see the necessity for this change. As previously stated, the case of Mukesh and Anr vs. State of NCT of Delhi & Ors^[8], often known as the Nirbhaya rape case, cleared the path for this amendment. In this case, it was claimed that the perpetrator’s age should never be used to obscure the extent of the violence he perpetrated on the victim. He was determined to be guilty of physically abusing the woman with an iron rod, shouting insults at her, and causing internal ruptures in her body.^[9] Due to the laws’ complacency of such heinous crimes committed by so-called “children,” Attorney Shweta Kapoor filed a Public Interest Litigation^[10] in the Delhi High Court, requesting that the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, 2000 be amended to deal with minors who have attained the age of 16 and are embroiled in severe crime.”. “Adolescents’ minds are thoroughly constituted by the time they reach adulthood of 16 and commit serious crimes, and they do not require society’s assistance and protection.” Rather, the society requires social protection from them,” according to the PIL.^[11]

The PIL claimed that if a person under the age of 16 is convicted of a crime, he can be detained in juvenile justice institutions; but, once they reach the age of 18, they must be handled like any other criminal. It was stressed that there was a need to recognize that a blanket minimum age enables the escape of those young individuals who are perfectly capable of discerning between good and evil but commit severe crimes. The case of State of Maharashtra vs. Vijay Mohan Jadhav & Ors^[12]., often known as the Shakti Mills rape case, included a child accused of a terrible act. One of the alleged rapists in the case was a minor. In both of the aforementioned incidents, one of the primary accused was a juvenile and so received just three years in a detention facility, whilst the accused adult perpetrators were sentenced to death. The question that arises is whether this punishment is sufficient to correct a young person. What type of punishment should be meted out to such guilty adolescents who may regard a live being as an object and make them a victim of their merciless behavior? It calls into question our entire concept of rehabilitating a prisoner!

In the judgment of Saurabh Jalinder Nangre vs. the State of Maharashtra^[13], the High Court heard a writ petition that raised the question of whether the juvenile should be sent to a court for children. A person 16-18 years old must be charged with a severe crime in order to be tried as an adult. The 2015 Act defines ‘heinous crimes’ as offenses for which the minimum punishment under the IPC or any other currently in effect legislation is imprisonment for seven years or more. So, even though those 17-year-olds attempted to take someone’s life and cause irreparable injury, the court opted to classify them as minors.

Concern on the Global Scale

In 1960, the Second United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Treatment of Offenders said that juvenile delinquency should be defined as the performance of an act that, if done by an adult above a certain age, would constitute a legal offense. The Sixth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, held in Venezuela in 1980, examined adolescent delinquency in more depth. They determined that the Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice should be established. Every child has human rights, which should not be denied by anyone. As a result, they stated that legislation should be enacted to safeguard children’s rights. As a result, it was agreed that special attention should be paid to the efforts taken to avoid delinquency among youngsters, as well as to homeless and street children in metropolitan areas. The need of paying special attention to young crime was also emphasized. It was thought about the character of juvenile crime in semi-urban and rural locations. Furthermore, the following topics were considered in the Beijing meeting (May 14–18, 1985) that looked at the Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice. A ‘child’ is defined as a person under the age of 18 in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 7. Infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence are all included. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,8 adopted in 1989, emphasizes four categories of civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights for all children. They are as follows:

(i) Right to survival: This encompasses the right to life, the best possible health, nourishment, and sufficient living conditions. It also involves the right to a name and to be of a certain nationality.

(ii) The right to protection encompasses the freedom from all types of exploitation, abuse, cruel or humiliating treatment, and neglect, as well as the right to particular protection in times of emergency and armed conflict.

(iii) The right to development includes access to quality education, developmental psychology and care, social security, and the right to leisure, recreation, and cultural events.

(iv) Respect for the child’s ideas, freedom of speech, access to relevant knowledge, and freedom of thought, conscience, and religion are all examples of participation rights.

The Convention establishes the legal foundation for taking action to protect children’s rights in society.

Relationship with Media

In recent years, there has been an ideological fight in juvenile delinquency between advocates of the reformative method and others who seek stronger legislation with no barrier between the Juvenile system and the normal criminal justice system. The media has been regarded to play an important part in this ideological war. It has played a key role in defining the global landscape of juvenile justice. The media, with its seductive combination of audio-visuals and distinctive technical elements, has a huge role to play in our children’s development. As a result, the media can provide us with a prognosis of the nature of our future society. The function of the media in relation to juveniles may be understood in a variety of ways.

Mass Media influences Delinquency

While taking a 360-degree view of children’s interactions with media, the UNICEF in its State of the World’s Children Report of 2017^[14] emphasizes the risks to which children are vulnerable when engaging with media in the digital environment of modern times, aside from the questions of access and opportunity for children of safe engagement and learning vis-a-vis media. The study categorizes hazards as content risks, contact risks, and conduct risks involving a kid as a recipient, participant, or victim.

Information risks are those that arise when a kid is exposed to undesired and unsuitable content such as sexual, pornographic, and violent pictures, some types of advertising, and the promotion of unhealthy, hazardous behaviors such as self-harm and suicide. An online game application titled “ Whale was recently banned in India because its content fostered suicide behavior. Correspondence hazards include hazardous communication, such as an adult seeking improper contact or soliciting for sexual motives, or efforts at violent extremism, among other things. Conduct risks are those that occur when a kid engages in a way that contributes to dangerous material or conduct. Youngsters encourage racism, publishing or generating damaging stuff regarding children, and so forth.

Indeed, child psychologists and academics have long expressed worries about how the media may have a detrimental impact on a kid’s development and behavior. Children who witness (in the media or their surroundings) others engaging in a specific aggressive behavior, such as striking, are more likely to engage in the same aggressive behavior immediately. Exposure to media violence has been linked to increased aggressive behavior, thoughts, arousal, and rage. The University of Alabama’s Jennings Bryant cautions of stalagmite effects, in which cognitive deposits pile up almost imperceptibly from the drip-drip-drip of television’s electronic limewater.

Children are unable to distinguish between truth and imagination. They lack the adult cognitive ability and may interpret TV episodes as realistic, influencing their behavior. Adolescents who see or are victims of violence in their homes or communities are more prone to employ violence themselves. This demonstrates that experiencing violence is a significant predictor of violent behavior, and media violence symbolizes witnessing violence in a very vivid and visual manner.^[15]

Legislation is influenced by the Media

The media has also had an impact on how juvenile laws have been enacted in the past. We have seen that severe measures are sought for delinquents, and given the media’s role in controlling the narrative and campaigning for tough legislation, this has prompted the state’s legislative organs to give in to the outcry based on vote bank politics. Traditional reformists who advocate for a more reformist approach are being side-lined by getting tough lobbyists.

Following the 2013 Delhi gang-rape case, the government stepped in with quick modifications to the Criminal Law in the shape of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 2013 and the Juvenile Justice Act of 2015. As a result, a juvenile between the ages of 16 and 18 can henceforth be regarded as an adult in serious crimes. Even though specialists in the field of juvenile law, including academics, did not accept the legislature’s unscientific emotive approach, which was persuaded by popular demonstrations in the aftermath of Nirbhaya. According to Dr. Faizan Mustafa, the breach of a basic principle of classical juvenile justice jurisprudence is justifiable owing to the repercussions of horrific crimes perpetrated by a few adolescents aged sixteen to eighteen. However, the State’s response in the form of repressive legislation that violates international law is an example of the cure being worse than the illness.^[16]

However, the problem of populist legislation is not limited to India. The same has been observed in many jurisdictions. In the United States, for example, in the aftermath of a disaster of the April 1999 shooting in Littleton, Colorado, the Senate and House of Representatives began to write substantial juvenile justice reform legislation. The Columbine High School massacre was one of the deadliest incidents of youth crime in US history, and it, along with a number of other juvenile deaths, verified the public’s worst concerns and grave predictions about juvenile criminality.

Legislators’ populist attitude has been criticized by Researchers and Intellectuals

Commercial forces shape the news media’s current presentation of crime and violence, and the ensuing coverage has played a significant influence in molding public opinion and, eventually, criminal justice policy. The news media are not mirrors, merely reflecting societal events. The economic coverage of crime in the news media has the ability to sway public sentiment, boosting support for harsh measures such as mandatory minimums, lengthier sentences, and classifying minors as adults.^[17]

In her article, What to Do with the Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing: The Role of Rhetoric and Reality about Youth Offenders in the Constructive Dismantling of the Juvenile Justice System, Professor Sacha M. Coupet observes that the public’s misguided perceptions of a national increase in juvenile crime are largely a product of the media: “The “politicization” of crime appears to have forged an unbreakable link between the mercurial nature^[18]

Use of Media in the Juvenile Justice System is Novel

Technological advancements have placed tools in the hands of humans that have rendered old techniques outdated and tough jobs easier than before. The same is becoming increasingly evident in the inventive use of digital and social media in case of disposition by law courts. Not only has technology infiltrated the merits of a case in light of the evidence and the formation of required facts, particularly in instances involving minors, but it has also permeated the management of case records and the E-filing of cases.

In the United States, a number of courts utilize social media to keep children who appear before them on track. Judge A. T. Frank of Michigan utilizes social media platforms to monitor criminals on probation under his authority, occasionally uncovering photographs on MySpace or Facebook profiles of defendants engaged in drug usage or other banned behavior. Judge Kathryn Lanan of Juvenile Court has used a similar strategy, forcing all adolescents under her jurisdiction to friend her on Facebook or MySpace so she may check their postings for any indicators of inappropriate behavior that would necessitate a repeat visit to her court.^[19]

The use of Facebook status and IP address to establish alibi as corroboration in law courts began with Rodney Bradford’s alibi in the Brooklyn Robbery case (2009), demonstrating how valuable media can be when used correctly. For the first occasion, in October 2009, Facebook status updates were utilized as alibi evidence. Because of the ubiquity of social networking and people’s seeming desire to expose more of themselves publicly, there is a larger cyber trail to trace than ever before. For many, their digital traces have led to felony convictions. They resulted in Rodney Bradford’s exoneration. Bradford’s case may have been the first to use Facebook as an alibi, but it is unlikely to be repeated.^[20]

Conclusion

As previously stated, the media is not inherently destructive. The harm is caused by the use to which it is put. Given that children are easily led astray, media exposure of children to harmful information should be reduced by coordinating the activities of policymakers, media, civil society, schools, and communities. The family plays the most important role in the development of children, but because the media has grown so pervasive, the function of the family has become constrained by the fact that it cannot control the enabling conditions that create delinquency in isolation. It is a group effort.

It is unfair to expose children to harmful influences and then classify them as criminals, depriving them of the opportunity to live a full life. At the same time, in modern times, the usage of digital resources and media is critical to a child’s growth, and may even be an amplifier of a child’s creative energies. Tough rules are unlikely to enact change in a society with weak institutional networks and moral underpinnings.

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References:

[1] Indian Jail Committee., Report of the Indian Jails Committee, 1919-1920. (Simla, Superintendent, Govt. Central Press, 1920-1919) (1920),

[2] Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (Repealed) Latest Laws, https://www.latestlaws.com/bare-acts/central-acts-rules/criminal-laws/code-of-criminal-procedure-1898/#:~:text=Procedure%20on%20accused%20appearing%20before%20Magistrate%20or%20Court.&text=Short%20title%20Commencement%20%2D(1)

[3] Indian Jail Committee., Report of the Indian Jails Committee, 1919-1920. (Simla, Superintendent, Govt. Central Press, 1920-1919) (1920),

[4] India: The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 [India], Act No. 56, 30 December 2000, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/54c209764.html 

[5] Indian Penal Code 1860, S.82-83

[6] India: The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 [India], Act No. 56, 30 December 2000, S.2, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/54c209764.html 

[7] India: The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 [India], Act No. 56, 30 December 2000, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/54c209764.html 

[8] (2017) 6 SCC 1 Mukesh & Anr vs State For Nct Of Delhi & Ors on 5 May, 2017

[9] Delhi gangrape: Should juveniles be tried and punished as adults? – Living News , Firstpost.

[10] 2016 2 AD (DELHI) 426 Shweta Kapoor & Others v. The Govt. Of Nct Of Delhi & Another

[11] Delhi gangrape: Should juveniles be tried and punished as adults? – Living News , Firstpost.

[12] The State Of Maharashtra vs Vijay Mohan Jadhav & Nanu And Ors

[13] 2020 ALLMR (CRI) 270 Saurabh Jalinder Nangre and Other v. The State of Maharashtra

[14] UNICEF Children in a Digital World , State of the World’s Children (2017) Chp.3

[15] Vivek Agarwal, Saranya Dhanasekaran,  Harmful Effects of Media on Children and Adolescents vol 8(2) Journal of Indian Association of Child Adolescent Mental Health p.39-4 (2012)

[16] Faizan Mustafa, Trial of Juveniles The Statesman , May 5, 2015 , available at https://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/trial-of-juveniles-61581.html

[17] Sara Sun Beale The News Media’s Influence on Criminal Justice Policy: How

Market-Driven News Promotes Punitiveness Volume 48 ( 2) William & Mary Law Review p. 397-398 (2006-2007)

[18] Sacha M. Coupet What to Do with the Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing: The Role of Rhetoric and Reality about Youth Offenders in the Constructive Dismantling of the Juvenile Justice System vol.148( 4) University of Pennsylvania Law Review p.1330 ( 2000)

[19] John J Browning The Impact of Online Social Media and Networking in Juvenile Law: Admissibility and Discoverability ,State Bar of Texas 26th Annual Robert O Dawson Juvenile Law , held on (February 11-13, 2013, San Antonio) available at https://juvenilelaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/The-Impact-of-Online-Social-Media-and-Networking-in-Juvenile-Law.pdf

[20] Id. 20