The Pune accident has reignited the exact debate in which children are being portrayed as monsters beyond redemption and a demand for harsher punishments and no mercy is surging.
Credit: PTI Photo
Sensational media reporting on incidents of crimes by children brings juvenile justice law and system into the public glare in a negative light leading to an irresponsible, shortsighted, unscientific, and anti-childhood discourse. Our country has suffered such catastrophe in the past and our children are now paying the price for this. The recent road accident in Pune has reignited the exact debate in which children are being portrayed as monsters beyond redemption and a demand for harsher punishments and no mercy is surging. The whole debate is a detail of these sentiments only.
Amidst these blood-baying calls for stricter punishments for children who go wrong in their lives, let us not lose sight of a recent report released on May 11 by iProbono, which revealed that at least 9681 children were wrongly incarcerated in adult prisons across the country between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2021. What can be more shocking than this degree and scale of harshness towards children? India being a country with one of the largest populations of children in the world has a demonstrated commitment to provide care and protection to its children, irrespective of their class, caste, and religion.
We have to let the law be implemented and if there is any anger that is needed at all, then it needs to be directed towards seeking better implementation of juvenile justice law so that more and more children, who deviate, who falter, and who come in conflict with the law, could be effectively reformed and be moulded into contributing citizens of our country. There is no gain for anyone in sending children to the jail.
We are witnessing in India an extremely disproportionate and frenzied response to juvenile crime. It is a documented phenomenon worldwide. People tend to react to crimes by children more sharply than they would to similar crimes by adults. That is the reason why juvenile justice law keeps the proceedings of a Juvenile Justice Board confidential. In the recent case in Pune, all possible details of a confidential and private proceeding came out in the media.
The quest to find solutions to adolescent crime and misbehaviour in harsher punishments may lead to long-term devastating effects on society. It is a recipe for a more criminalised society. The United States is an example of this tragedy. Such incidents are a calling for deep and sincere self-reflection by individuals and society who sustain a culture of enabling public misbehaviour. Each time we turn a blind eye to any small incident of public nuisance on roads or elsewhere, we end up contributing to a build-up towards such tragedies. No amount of law and justice can provide a cure for a penchant to take risks, higher impulsiveness, defiance, and recklessness, all of which are definitive markers of adolescence. If there is any lesson that we all must learn from the incident in Pune, then it is about our individual, collective, societal, and familial responsibility to practice and generate an environment of zero tolerance to public misbehaviour and to refurbish our commitment to restoring childhood to children who go wrong. This will be our sincere collective apology to those who suffer such crimes.
Anant Kumar Asthana
(The writer is a child rights lawyer in the Delhi High Court)