International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology

Juvenile Justice Reforms in India

The Impact of Juvenile

Justice Reforms in India
Sesha Kethineni
Tricia Klosky

Abstract: This article examines changes in the juvenile justice system after passage of the
comprehensive Juvenile Justice Act (1986) and the impact those changes have had on juvenile
offenders in India. Specifically, this study examines how changes in the juvenile justice system
impacted the types of cases brought before the juvenile courts and the types of dispositions
imposed on delinquent children. Data were collected from court records in the Southern state
of Tamil Nadu, India, from January 1983 to November 1997.

The Juvenile Justice Act (JJA) of 1986 came into effect in the early part of 1987.
Prior to this act, each state in India had its own Children’s Act subject to individual
state laws. Under those laws, state courts were given a great deal of discretion in
their handling of neglected/dependent and delinquent children. In many cases,
those two populations were tried in the same courts, housed in the same facilities,
and sanctioned similarly (Hartjen, 1993; Nagla, 1981).
The new JJA, however, made a fundamental distinction between those who
committed offenses and those who were the products of misfortune. The JJA
introduced changes in definitions, court procedures, and dispositional options for
dealing with delinquent and neglected/dependent children. Some of these
changes directly impacted the processing of juveniles. For example, the JJA cre-
ated a two-tier system for processing delinquent and neglected/dependent chil-
dren and also established separate institutions to house the two populations
(Hartjen & Kethineni, 1992). On a less practical level, other changes were
intended to portray a shift in philosophical thinking. These include the substitu-
tion of less punitive legal terms in place of a punishment-oriented vocabulary for
both populations. For example, the word trial was replaced with adjudication.
The terms maintenance, welfare, training, and education were replaced with
treatment and development. Whereas on the surface these changes appear to be
cosmetic, they show a general trend toward a social welfare approach.
The data were collected from the court records from the Chief Metropolitan
Magistrate Court and juvenile court from 1983 to 1997 in the city of Madras, state
of Tamil Nadu, in India. Specifically, the study examines the impact of the JJA on

International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 44(3), 2000 312-325
 2000 Sage Publications, Inc.
312

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Juvenile Justice Reforms in India 313

the types of cases brought before the juvenile court, the types of dispositions
imposed on delinquent children, and the impact of the law on processing time.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

To date, very little research has examined the impact of new juvenile legisla-
tion governing the treatment of juveniles in India (Hartjen, 1993; Kumari, 1991;
Mitra, 1988). Research on juvenile justice in India has focused primarily on inci-
dence and prevalence of delinquency rather than on processing of juveniles in
court (Hartjen & Kethineni, 1992, 1993, 1996; Hartjen & Priyadarsini, 1984). Pri-
marily, this paucity has been due to the lack of available data and the presumption
that in comparison to the United States and other Western countries, India has
very little juvenile delinquency. The relative inaccessibility of data on juvenile
processing has dissuaded researchers from examining the delinquency problem
closely over time.
In India, prior to the passing of the comprehensive Juvenile Justice Act of
1986, almost all laws pertaining to juveniles were based on the British laws. Those
laws were made applicable to India with or without modifications (Sarkar, 1987).
The first such legislation pertaining to juveniles was the Apprentice Act of 1850,
which dealt with both delinquents and destitute children. This act had very little
impact in India in comparison to similar legislation in the United States and Eng-
land (Sarkar, 1987). The second legislative effort in the treatment of juveniles
came in the form of the Reformatory School Act in 1870, aimed at removing juve-
niles from adult penitentiaries. This act, however, did not make striking changes
except incarcerating juveniles in separate facilities, which ironically, in many
instances, resembled those of adult prisons (Sarkar, 1987).
Appalled at the treatment of juveniles in police lockups and facilities, the 1919
Indian Jail Commission provided several reform recommendations. Those
changes included the enactment of a special children’s act, the establishment of
separate juveniles courts with special court procedures, and the development of
separate institutions for children (Sarkar, 1987).
By the 1920s, although still under British rule, Indian provincial (regional)
governments could exercise limited self-government. The province of Madras
(currently known as Tamil Nadu) enacted Madras Children’s Act of 1920 as one
of the first provincial pieces of legislation dealing with minors.
The Madras Children’s Act provided a distinct legal status to young persons.
Under this act, the state had to incarcerate young offenders in separate facilities
from adult criminals. Moreover, the act allowed the state to have legal guardian-
ship over dependent and neglected children. Finally, the act served as a model for
other jurisdictions developing their own children’s legislation (Hartjen, 1993).
Based on this model, Bengal passed an act in 1922, followed by Bombay in 1924
(Sikka, 1982).

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314 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology

The 1920s’ provincial legislation remained largely in place for years after
India’s independence from British rule in 1947 (Sikka, 1982). The first national
effort to standardize the juvenile laws occurred with the passage of the Children’s
Act of 1960, four decades after the groundbreaking model of Madras was set up.
This 1960 act was made applicable only to union territories, which were and still
are directly under central (federal) administration. At the more independent state
level, however, the unification of India’s juvenile laws came into effect more than
a quarter of a century later with the passage of the 1986 Juvenile Justice Act.

CHANGES IN DEFINITIONS
The word delinquency was introduced in Indian law in 1954. The term was ini-
tially applied in reference to a child offender and later used in reference to a youth-
ful offender culminating in the JJA of 1986 (Sen, 1993). The new JJA defines a
male juvenile as younger than the age of 16 and a female juvenile as younger than
the age of 18. The reasoning behind this gender difference is not addressed in the
JJA or in any of the prior studies on the 1986 act pertaining to juveniles. Discus-
sions with juvenile justice practitioners conducted as part of this research, how-
ever, revealed that differences in socialization practices for males and females in
Indian society probably instigated that difference. Indian girls are rarely alone or
allowed to venture out on their own. In almost all cases, their relatives or responsi-
ble adults accompany them (Hartjen & Kethineni, 1996; Hartjen & Priyadarsini,
1984). The patriarchal nature of Indian society limits the freedom of young girls,
and as a result, their emotional and maturational development is delayed in rela-
tion to young boys (Sandhu, 1987). In other words, girls are assumed to have had
less experience in making their own decisions and bear less responsibility for their
actions. This in part may explain the government’s desire to make distinctions
between the definitions of juvenile for boys and girls (Sen, 1993).

CHANGES IN COURT STRUCTURE AND PROCEDURE

The JJA created a two-tier system in which delinquent children are to be tried
in a separate juvenile court, whereas neglected/dependent children are to be pro-
cessed by a juvenile welfare board. The JJA allows each state to decide whether it
wishes to have a separate juvenile court or have juvenile matters decided by the
judicial bench sitting to hear only juvenile, not adult, matters. The composition of
the bench, with three to four judges, must consist of either judicial or metropolitan
magistrates, one of whom is appointed by the state government as the principal
magistrate. The state government also determines the exact number of magis-
trates who will be appointed to any particular bench. Any state wishing to create a
separate juvenile court must have the assistance of an honorary panel of two social
workers, one having to be a female.

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Juvenile Justice Reforms in India 315

States that do not desire to have a special juvenile court are required to have a
metropolitan or judicial magistrate hear juvenile cases. All magistrates must have
special training or knowledge of child welfare or psychology, yet the statute does
not define or delineate either that training or knowledge. And, any trial a magis-
trate conducts must be completed within 3 months. This time limit is imposed to
avoid long delays experienced by offenders in the adult system. Juveniles, it is
assumed, are less able to withstand pretrial detention, and allowing them to
remain in abusive or nonsupervision conditions in their homes is considered detri-
mental to their well-being. Furthermore, it is intended to shorten the length of con-
tact between juveniles accused of committing crimes and those who were consid-
ered neglected and dependent. These two populations are housed in the same
observation home prior to dispositions (Mitra, 1988).
Parents are required to attend the proceedings unless there is a conflict of inter-
est present. For example, if the child has been abused or used by the parents for
criminal purposes (i.e., child prostitution), this requirement can be waived. The
decisions of the juvenile courts can be appealed to the Court of Sessions, which
has both original and appellate jurisdictions. However, in practice, only a small
percentage of juvenile court cases are appealed. The grounds for appeal include
the omission of relevant evidence, dissatisfaction with type of disposition
received, and clerical errors made in the orders of disposition.
Neglected and dependent children are processed in separate forums called
juvenile welfare boards. Each board consists of a chairman and other members as
the state government may deem fit to appoint. Of these members, at least one per-
son must be female. Each member of the board has the same powers as a magis-
trate and thus must have specialized knowledge in child psychology and welfare.
One reason for the inclusion of female members is the working or cultural
assumption that they have such knowledge.
The procedures used by welfare boards are informal, nonpunitive, and
nonjudicial in nature. Members of the welfare boards can stipulate procedures on
a case-by-case basis. For example, a juvenile in poor health would benefit more
from immediate medical treatment than from placement in a juvenile home with
the expectation that treatment would be provided at some point in that setting.
However, in India, there are no medical insurance plans, especially for the classes
or groups that customarily appear before the board. On an ad hoc basis, board
members call on the social and political elite from which they themselves are
drawn for funds or donations of professional services.
Generally, welfare boards place juveniles with fit guardians or in fit institutions
as well as in juvenile homes until they reach the age of majority. Under special cir-
cumstances, such as physical disability or no adult guardians being available, the
welfare boards may extend the supervision to the age of 18 for males and 21 for
females. In the event of a jurisdictional dispute between the members of the juve-
nile court bench and the members of the juvenile welfare board, individuals on
both are polled. The opinion favored by the majority of individuals prevails.

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316 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology

TREATMENT OF JUVENILES UNDER JJA

A wide range of escalating dispositions was available under the old act. First,
juveniles could be sent home with advice or admonition. Second, they could be
released on probation and placed under the care of parents, guardians, or other fit
persons executing a bond. Third, they could be released on probation and placed
under the care of a fit institution for a period not exceeding 3 years. Fourth, if the
juveniles older than the age of 14 were earning money themselves, they were
required to pay their own fines. Finally, juveniles found delinquent could be sent
to a special home usually for a period of not less than 3 years or until the juveniles
reached the age of majority. Although special schools were established under the
old act, the new act requires that the juveniles sent to special homes be classified
on the basis of age and the types of offense committed (Mookerjee, 1989).
Although some of the less punitive dispositions available under the old act can
still be applied to juveniles under the JJA, juveniles can no longer be given the
death penalty or life imprisonment. Furthermore, the JJA stipulates that juveniles
should not be committed to prison in default of payment of fine. The JJA also
requires that adjudicated delinquents be housed in separate facilities from those
for neglected/dependent juveniles.
This study builds and expands on previous studies in several respects. Past
studies either examined the effect of the new act on delinquency rates and
dispositional outcomes (Hartjen, 1993; Hartjen & Kethineni, 1996) or described
the organizational structure and the roles of various agencies under the new act
(Mookerjee, 1989). A few other studies compared the definition of delinquency
and processing of delinquents in India to other countries (Janeksela, 1991). First,
this study focuses on the types of cases brought before the juvenile court, the types
of dispositions given, and the length of processing from arrest to final disposition
before and after the passing of the JJA. Second, past studies relied on published
official data documented in Crime in India, which is similar to the Uniform Crime
Report in the United States. The usefulness of the official data is limited for two
reasons. First, the crime data for certain years were not officially published and
are therefore not available for the study of long-term crime trends. Second, for the
years when the data are available, it is difficult to make any meaningful compari-
sons based on age because the age criteria defining juveniles changed with the
JJA. The data for this research were collected directly from the Metropolitan
Magistrate Court in Madras from 1983 through 1986 and from Madras Juvenile
Court from 1987 through 1997. After the researcher completed the data collec-
tion, the government of Tamil Nadu passed an order to destroy records that were
more than 5 years old. Thus, the data prior to 1986 will no longer be available for
other researchers. This study takes advantage of the data collected prior to 1986 so
that a comparison before and after the passing of the JJA can be made.

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Juvenile Justice Reforms in India 317

METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH SITE AND DATA COLLECTION

For the purpose of this study, data were collected from two sources: 1983
through 1997 court records from the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court and
from the juvenile court in Madras. Data from court records prior to the passing of
the JJA (1983 to 1986) were collected from archives located in the Chief Metro-
politan Magistrate Court in the city of Madras, state of Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu is
one of the largest states in India, with an area of 130,000 square kilometers. As of
July 1997, Tamil Nadu had a population of 55,859,000, which is approximately
17% of India’s total population of 966,783,171. Madras is the capital of Tamil
Nadu, with a population of 4,428,900 (Government of India, 1999).
Although Madras is a multilingual city, the majority of the population speaks
Tamil, followed by Telugu (5%). Hindus constitute nearly 80% of the population,
with Muslims (14%), Christians (2.4%), and other religious groups (3.6%) mak-
ing up the rest.
The government of Tamil Nadu requires that the courts keep records for a
5-year period, at which point they are marked for destruction. Collecting data in
1997, the researchers were fortunate in that most records from the period 1983 to
1987 were still available. However, it was clear that some records had been
destroyed or filed elsewhere. Therefore, this study is not representative of all
cases tried prior to the passing of the JJA. By contrast, even more complete data
from 1987 through November 1997 were collected from the only existing juvenile
court in the state of Tamil Nadu, which started maintaining its own records when
the JJA went into effect. The information obtained from these sources includes
demographic profiles, types of offenses, types of dispositions, and the length of
time from trial to disposition.

RESULTS

DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
According to the records, delinquency patterns in Tamil Nadu are consistent
with prior studies conducted in India. For example, delinquent behavior is a male
phenomenon, with the percentage of males processed by the courts far outnum-
bering the percentage of females (Hartjen & Kethineni, 1993; Krishna, 1993;
Mohan & Nalwa, 1992; Nagla, 1981; Sivanandam, 1990). Males in this study rep-
resent 87% or more of the cases processed by the courts both before and after the
passing of the JJA. The largest percentages of females were represented in 1986
and 1997 (13.2% and 10%, respectively).

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318 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology

When looking at the age of the juvenile offenders processed by the courts, the
largest percentage of cases appeared in the 15-year-old age category from 1989 to
1997. Prior to 1989, juveniles 12 and younger represented the largest category.
This was due to processing of delinquent and neglected/dependent children under
one court system prior to the JJA. After the passage of JJA, there was a sharp
decrease in the percentage of juveniles processed in the 17-year-old category. The
JJA stipulates that 17-year-old males be transferred to adult court (see Table 1)
where they are no longer under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. That some
17-year-old juveniles continued to be processed as juveniles is one example of the
inertia surrounding old procedures that has yet to be overcome.

TYPES OF CASES PROCESSED

When examining how the JJA affected the types of cases processed, the data
show very little effect on the types of cases brought before the juvenile court. Prior
to 1987, property crime represented 87.4% of the cases processed compared with
76.2% after the passing of the JJA. Personal offenses prior to 1987 represented
4.5% compared to 5.7% after the act. A slight increase was reported in the per-
centage of offenses such as vice, alcohol, drugs, and public order offenses before
and after the act (8.1% and 18.1%, respectively). Overall, property offenses
decreased by 10%, whereas vice-related offenses increased by 10% after the pas-
sage of the JJA.
When age of the male offenders and the type of offenses committed prior to the
act were cross-tabulated, the largest category of offenders was 16-year-olds for
both property and personal offenses. The exception to this was found in the
vice/public order offenses (see Table 2) where 12-year-olds represented the larg-
est category. After the act, 15-year-old offenders represented at a highest percent-
age for property and personal offenses, whereas for vice offenses, the
12-year-olds made up the largest percentage. These percentages seem to suggest
that younger offenders commit vice/gambling/public order offenses more often
than property and personal offenses. For poor children, gambling on the street
represents a form of play. These offenders are highly visible and therefore are
often picked up by police doing ordinary patrol work on the streets. Older offend-
ers with more freedom to be out on their own committed the more serious
offenses. Many were street children who resorted to committing those crimes to
survive on the streets. The possibility also exists that after the passing of the act,
older children often do not actually report their ages to avoid being transferred to
an adult court. As a result, the number of children in the 15-year-old age category
increased after the passage of the act.

TYPES OF DISPOSITIONS
Of the types of dispositions received by juveniles for property and personal
offenses prior to the JJA and after the JJA, release on bond with supervision was

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 TABLE 1
NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF JUVENILES PROCESSED YEARLY BY THE COURTS BY AGE

12 and Younger 13 Years 14 Years 15 Years 16 Years 17 and Older

Year Frequency % Frequency % Frequency % Frequency % Frequency % Frequency % Total
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1983 35 18.5 24 12.7 27 14.3 41 21.7 40 21.2 22 11.7 189

1984 38 17.4 28 12.8 31 14.2 46 21.1 41 18.8 34 15.6 218
1985 20 30.3 2 3.0 14 21.2 10 15.2 17 25.8 3 4.5 66
1986 7 18.4 4 10.5 5 13.2 6 15.8 9 23.7 7 18.4 38
1987 34 20.9 18 11.0 31 19.0 27 16.6 25 15.3 28 17.1 163
1988 153 43.6 30 8.5 38 10.8 92 26.2 36 10.3 2 .6 351
1989 49 20.9 24 10.3 48 20.5 91 38.9 21 9.0 1 .4 234
1990 82 29.5 29 10.4 52 18.7 111 39.9 3 1.1 1 .4 278
1991 37 21.0 26 14.8 32 18.2 72 40.9 8 4.5 1 .6 176
1992 17 20.0 11 12.9 19 22.4 34 40.0 1 1.2 3 3.5 85
1993 14 17.7 11 13.9 19 24.1 34 43.0 0 0.0 1 1.3 79
1994 19 19.4 12 12.2 17 17.3 45 45.9 4 4.1 1 1.0 98
1995 18 18.0 12 12.0 27 27.0 42 42.0 1 1.0 0 0.0 100
1996 10 17.2 2 3.4 14 24.1 31 53.4 1 1.7 0 0.0 58
1997 8 16.0 8 16.0 11 22.0 22 44.0 0 0.0 1 2.0 50
319
 320

TABLE 2
TYPE OF OFFENSE COMMITTED BY MALE BY AGE
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Offense Categories Prior to 1987 Offense Categories 1987 Through 1997

Vice/Gambling/ Vice/Gambling/
Property Personal Public Order Property Personal Public Order
Age Group Frequency % Frequency % Frequency % Frequency % Frequency % Frequency %

12 and younger 77 18.5 2 9.1 12 29.3 251 20.8 8 9.3 139 51.1
13 years 44 10.6 2 9.1 9 22.0 136 11.3 4 4.7 25 9.2
14 years 64 15.4 2 9.1 6 14.5 251 20.8 11 12.8 39 14.3
15 years 86 20.7 6 27.3 5 12.2 476 39.5 41 47.7 59 21.7
16 years 89 21.4 7 31.8 5 12.2 70 5.8 13 15.1 9 3.3
17 and older 56 13.5 3 13.6 4 9.8 21 1.7 9 10.5 1 0.4

Total N 416 22 41 1,205 86 272

Juvenile Justice Reforms in India 321

the most common disposition received (see Table 3). Before the act, the most
common disposition for vice-related crimes was a fine (85.4%). After the act was
passed, the most common disposition for vice crimes was transfer to juvenile wel-
fare board or case dismissal (39.9%). The difference in fine versus transfer for
vice crimes can be attributed to the fact that with the act, those offenses by juve-
niles were considered minor acts of deviance, which do not require court interven-
tion. Also, fines were less frequently used for property crimes after the act (see
Table 3). It appears that under the JJA, the courts increased their level of control
over juveniles by releasing more juveniles on supervision rather than using dispo-
sitions of fines, admonitions, or acquittals.
Looking at the percentages of juveniles sent to special homes before and after
JJA implementation, there was almost no difference. Whereas sending juveniles
to special homes represents the most severe sanction available under the JJA,
under the old act, magistrates had the power to send juveniles to jails. Therefore,
one would have expected to see an increase in the number of juveniles sent to spe-
cial homes under the new act in the absence of jail sentence as a dispositional
option. However, because of lack of space in special homes, magistrates could
have chosen to use a range of dispositions instead of sending juveniles to special
homes.

PROCESSING TIME
When length of time from filing of a case to final disposition from 1983
through 1986 was compared, the mean number of days ranged from 56 days in
1983 to 44 days in 1984 (see Table 4). After the passing of the JJA, the processing
time more dramatically fluctuated. For example, in 1991, the average was 38 days
compared to 82 days in 1992. Although the average dropped to 14 days in 1997,
this figure may not be accurate for the full year because data collection stopped in
October 1997. These data highlight one of the ironies of the JJA, which was
enacted in part to limit processing time to 3 months. Although there was a percep-
tion that cases prior to the JJA were taking longer, these data show that perception
to have been incorrect. Moreover, after the JJA, the processing times usually
equaled or exceeded prior times.

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

Indian society has gone through rapid economic and social changes since the
mid-1980s. The question one could ask is whether these changes have influenced
juvenile crime rates in the country. A review of juvenile crime rates from 1980
through 1997 does not indicate a significant increase in the overall offenses com-
mitted by juveniles. Thus, the primary reasons for passing the act cannot be attrib-
uted to a rise in crime rates. It has been suggested that these efforts reflect a desire
on the part of the Indian central government to achieve uniformity and centralized

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 322

TABLE 3
TYPE OF DISPOSITION BY OFFENSE CATEGORIES

Offense Categories Prior to 1987 Offense Categories 1987 Through 1997

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Vice/Gambling/ Vice/Gambling/
Property Personal Public Order Property Personal Public Order
Type of
Disposition Frequency % Frequency % Frequency % Frequency % Frequency % Frequency %

Special home 42 9.4 0 0.0 0 0.0 135 10.0 4 4.0 4 1.2

Bond and
supervision 218 48.8 12 52.2 0 0.0 808 59.9 49 49.5 44 3.6
Bond 34 7.6 1 4.3 0 0.0 109 8.1 17 17.2 73 22.6
Fine 0 0.0 6 26.1 35 85.4 0 0.0 2 2.0 0 0.0
Bail 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 1 1.0 0 0.0
Admonished 69 15.4 2 8.7 5 12.2 126 9.3 10 10.1 33 10.2
Acquitted 42 9.4 1 4.3 0 0.0 59 4.4 9 9.1 0 0.0
Proceeding
stopped/
compromised 38 8.5 1 4.3 1 2.4 113 8.4 5 5.0 40 12.4
Transfer/case
closed 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 2 2.0 129 39.9
Total N 443 23 41 1,350 99 323
Juvenile Justice Reforms in India 323

TABLE 4
AVERAGE LENGTH OF TIME BETWEEN FILING CHARGES AND FINAL
DISPOSITION PRIOR TO JUVENILE JUSTICE ACT (JJA) AND AFTER JJA

Year Mean

Prior to JJA
1983 56.36
1984 44.05
1985 48.18
1986 53.94
Overall mean (1983 to 1986) 49.87
After JJA (1987 to 1997)
1987 51.63
1988 39.22
1989 57.75
1990 48.01
1991 38.11
1992 82.41
1993 67.21
1994 62.37
1995 54.47
1996 42.53
1997 13.60
Overall mean (1987 to 1997) 49.77

control of laws (Hartjen, 1993). To reduce disparities in court procedures and

treatment of offenders throughout India and to minimize regional control over
certain issues, a number of centralized laws were passed along with the JJA. They
include the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Act (1985), the Dowry Prohi-
bition Act (1985), the Commission of Sati Prevention Act (1987), and others.
Another possible reason for those recent legal reforms was the need to bring
about social awareness in certain areas. The pressure to promote social awareness
and change through laws and various social programs came from women’s orga-
nizations, human rights organizations both in India and abroad, and other social
activists. One such effort in the area of children was to develop separate proce-
dures for delinquent and neglected/dependent children. A second effort was to
remove punitive language from the juvenile codes and replace it with more reha-
bilitative language. A third approach was to eliminate harsh sanctions such as the
death penalty, life imprisonment, and prison sentences for juveniles. A fourth
effort was to involve informal, community-based welfare agencies in the care and
treatment of juveniles (Mookerjee, 1989). These reforms were enacted to enforce
uniformity and to remove some of the inconsistencies in the definitions, proce-
dures, and treatment of juveniles among various states.

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324 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology

First, the JJA required that separate entities process either delinquent or
dependent/neglected children. That goal has been met as a majority of states now
have a two-part system, one for juvenile delinquents and the other for depend-
ent/neglected children. Second, the JJA recommended that a panel of at least three
magistrates should try delinquent cases. During the data collection period, it was
revealed that a single magistrate tried almost all cases. This practice occurs as a
result of wide discretionary powers given to states under the new act. The JJA stip-
ulates that each state can decide how many magistrates must serve on the juvenile
court bench. As a result, many states choose to have juvenile cases tried by a single
magistrate rather than by a bench of three or more. This in essence did not change
the nature of juvenile trials. Therefore, many states continue to operate under the
old system of trial by a single magistrate. This practice may mean that the same
number of magistrates sitting singly can process more cases than they could sit-
ting in groups, thereby reducing processing time. But, the continuation of single
magistrate trials flies in the face of the JJA’s mandate for a more collaborative
social welfare orientation.
Third, the JJA stipulates that only delinquent juveniles and not depend-
ent/neglected children are to be housed in special homes. Thus, we would expect a
decrease in the percentage of juveniles referred to special homes after the JJA was
passed. If the JJA’s purpose was to promote rehabilitation, one would expect to see
an increase in the less punitive dispositions of admonition, acquittal, and fines.
The results, however, did not show an increase in such dispositions, thus suggest-
ing that magistrates under the new act prefer to use bond with or without supervi-
sion as favorable dispositions.
Although the JJA was intended to promote uniformity through centralized leg-
islation, in actual practice, it has produced few noteworthy changes. It has been
almost 10 years since the JJA was passed, and many states still do not have sepa-
rate juvenile courts. Furthermore, in many instances, a single magistrate rather
than a collegiate bench adjudicates juvenile cases. The results from this study and
prior studies in this area suggest that the JJA did not bring about the intended
reforms (Chatterjee, 1995).
Changes need to be made in several areas for the law to be effective. First, there
should be a collegiate bench in deciding juvenile court matters. The fact that the
composition of juvenile courts was left to the individual states has allowed some
states to function with single magistrates. In some instances, states appoint
part-time magistrates with little or no training in juvenile matters. Furthermore,
many of those magistrates use juvenile court as a stepping-stone to more presti-
gious appointments. Implementing innovations, even those suggested or man-
dated by higher authorities, carries greater risks than maintaining the status quo.
Mistakes mean roadblocks to promotion. To bring reform in the system, these
magistrates should be specially trained and appointed for fixed terms. Periodic
reviews should be conducted to ensure that the changes have been implemented.
Future research should examine how other states are implementing the JJA and
what reforms have been brought about in those states.

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Juvenile Justice Reforms in India 325

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Sesha Kethineni, Ph.D. Tricia Klosky, Ph.D.

Associate Professor Assistant Professor
Department of Criminal Justice Sciences Department of Criminal Justice Sciences
Illinois State University Illinois State University
418 Schroeder Hall 420 Schroeder Hall
Campus Box 5250 Campus Box 5250
Normal, IL 61790-5250 Normal, IL 61790-5250
USA USA

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