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PALGRAVE ADVANCES IN CRIMINOLOGY
AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN ASIA

Children and Crime

in India
Causes, Narratives
and Interventions
Saju Parackal
Rita Panicker
Palgrave Advances in Criminology
and Criminal Justice in Asia

Series Editors
Bill Hebenton
Criminology & Criminal Justice
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK

Susyan Jou
School of Criminology
National Taipei University
Taipei, Taiwan

Lennon Y. C. Chang
School of Social Sciences
Monash University
Melbourne, Australia
This bold and innovative series provides a much needed intellectual space
for global scholars to showcase criminological scholarship in and on Asia.
Reflecting upon the broad variety of methodological traditions in Asia,
the series aims to create a greater multi-directional, cross-national under-
standing between Eastern and Western scholars and enhance the field of
comparative criminology. The series welcomes contributions across all
aspects of criminology and criminal justice as well as interdisciplinary
studies in sociology, law, crime science and psychology, which cover the
wider Asia region including China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea,
Macao, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14719
 Saju Parackal • Rita Panicker

Children and Crime

in India
Causes, Narratives and Interventions
Saju Parackal Rita Panicker
Butterflies Butterflies
New Delhi, India New Delhi, India

Palgrave Advances in Criminology and Criminal Justice in Asia

ISBN 978-3-030-16588-8    ISBN 978-3-030-16589-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16589-5

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

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 Preface

The book—Children and Crime in India—is being published at a time

when the nation is seriously contemplating the strengthening of its
Juvenile Justice System in order to prevent children from getting on the
wrong side of the law.
Research has shown that the breaking of rules is part of the growth and
development of children. Even under normal circumstances, most teens
push family and societal boundaries. They retort, break rules, have fights
and sometimes steal as they navigate into adulthood. Data show that
most adolescent criminal behaviour is specific to adolescence period and
will not continue into adulthood. Most adolescents will outgrow deviant
behaviour, in much the same way as a toddler outgrows temper tantrums.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics of 2014 records
that 482,30 children were apprehended during this period, accounting
for 1.2% of the overall crimes in India, which has remained broadly
steady for the past three years (NCRB, 2014). This is almost half the rate
of those arrested in the UK and the USA. Given such a low level of par-
ticipation of children in offences, they should not be viewed as creating a
moral panic in society, as reflected in newspapers, videos and television.
The central question that this book tries to answer is: What really
pushes or pulls these children into the wrong side of the law? There is
general agreement that behaviour, including anti-social and deviant
behaviour, is the result of a complex interplay of individual and
v
vi Preface

e­nvironmental factors, beginning during foetal development and con-

tinuing throughout life (Bock & Goode, 1996). It is generally perceived
and recognized that the more risk factors a child or adolescent experi-
ences, the higher their propensity for deviant behaviour. However, many
children reach adulthood without any involvement in serious deviant or
anti-­social behavior, even in the face of multiple risks.
Failure to fulfil the roles expected of the family, school and community
plays a pivotal role in diverting children from law-abiding lives. Many
teenagers lack the presence of positive role models. Parents will often
defend their children, even after their sons or daughters have been found
guilty of serious crimes, by saying, “It’s not possible that my kid could
have done such a terrible thing.” Parents may tend to overlook what is
going on with their children because of their absorption in their own
busy lives. This undoubtedly has a negative impact on the life of a young
child, in particular the way they act on a daily basis. Values, attitudes and
beliefs learned from one’s environment also determines his or her behav-
iour. Most of the children in the detention centres are from a background
of abject poverty and vulnerabilities, and may have learned, or come to
believe, that aggression is a legitimate method to resolve various interper-
sonal problems and conflicts encountered in life.
Research on the peculiarities of adolescence describes that their brains
are like cars without brakes. They are rebellious, reckless, short-term-­
oriented, and tragically susceptible to peer pressure. They tend to roam in
groups, display attitudes of gang culture, and they may engage in extreme
behaviours that they might never have undertaken on their own. This
phenomenon is the result of what has been called a “diffusion of respon-
sibility.” In a crowd, individuals often abandon restraint and give vent to
impulses because no one feels a sense of individually responsibility. They
are impetuous and poor judges of many things that adults consider wor-
thy of measured judgment. Neuroscientists rationalize this behaviour by
stating that their brains are not completely developed, and their impulse
control mechanisms are not fully developed.
The stories of children cited in the book explain that environmental
factors, particularly family, school, peers and community, play a crucial
role in their engagement with deviant behaviour. It makes an appeal that
children should be viewed not as a dangerous threat but as the most
 Preface vii

v­ aluable resource of the country. The punitive strategy may not be the
best and appropriate option; there should instead be a focus on restor-
ative justice, which has been found to be effective and beneficial to chil-
dren. Furthermore, a strengthening of families by promoting harmony in
the family and enhancing parenting skills would lay the foundation for
any preventive measures that ensures children do not get into deviant
behaviours.
The chapters in the book have been divided into four distinct sections.
The first section, which contains Chap. 1—the introductory chapter, sets
the stage of the study by describing the context and methodology adopted
for the study. The second section, consisting of three chapters (Chaps. 2,
3 and 4), explains in detail the push and pull factors that influence them
and lead them to be in conflict with the law. The third section, Chap. 5,
examines the juvenile justice system and explores what approaches work
in terms of treating the children involved in crimes and what is effective
in preventing reoffending. The final section—Chap. 6—summarizes the
main conclusions of the study and identifies future directions for viewing
and treating children as persons.

New Delhi, India Rita Panicker

 Saju Parackal

Reference
Bock, G.R., & Goode, J.A., eds. (1996). Genetics of criminal and antisocial
behavior. Chichester: Wiley.
 Acknowledgements

Writing these words of gratitude is the greatest thing that we can do at

the end of this long journey. Reaching this point was not easy. There were
stages in the process of this research when we were excited and stressed.
Nevertheless, we were able to overcome these and to endure in our effort
with the encouragement of many who have, either directly or indirectly,
extended their support to us. We thank each and every one of them who
journeyed with us all along this endeavour, either visibly or invisibly.
We sincerely thank our publishers Palgrave Macmillan and our funders
ChildHope, Comic Relief and Misereor, without whose support this
endeavour would not have been possible.
We are deeply indebted to the Department of Social Justice, Kerala,
the Department of Social Defence, Tamil Nadu, Mr Arun Mathur,
Chairperson, Ms Mamta Sahai, Member State Commissions for
Protection of Child Rights, Delhi and State Commission for Protection
of Child Rights, Orissa for granting us the required permission for under-
taking the study among children and officials in various juvenile justice
institutions. We remember, with the utmost gratitude, superintendents
and officials of various juvenile justice institutions, probation officers and
juvenile justice members of the four states under study, who were a great
source of inspiration and support in undertaking our research. Their
experiential inputs made significant contributions at the various stages of
our study.
ix
x Acknowledgements

We also thank Mr S. Kannayiram, Probation Officer (Retd), Tamil

Nadu, Mr Subrat Kumar Sahoo, Programme Officer, Open Learning
System, Orissa and Mr Rajeesh. S, Researcher, Butterflies Delhi who
interacted and interviewed the children and collected the information
and stories behind the children’s lives in juvenile justice institutions. A
special note of thanks should be extended to Ms Josephine Taylor for her
support in helping us get this book out and Mr Sujay Joseph for his sup-
port in copy-editing.
Finally, we cannot conclude our acknowledgements without thanking
the children (whose names and identities have been changed) in various
detention centres in the states under study, who confided in us and shared
their life experiences and stories with us which formed the central body
of knowledge for this study. We have the children’s permission to tell
their stories.

Rita Panicker
Saju Parackal
 Contents

1 The Context  1

2 The Socio-economic Profile of Children in Conflict with

the Law 21

3 The Nature of Offences and Culpability 47

4 Factors Predisposing Children to Offences 93

5 The Juvenile Justice System: A Pathway for the Restoration

of Children in Conflict with the Law199

6 Summary and Conclusions233

Glossary243

Index247

xi
 Abbreviations

BSCC Butterflies School of Culinary and Catering

CCL Children in Conflict with Law
CCPR Covenant on Civil Political Rights
CNCP Children in Need of Care and Protection
CRC Committee on the Rights of the Child
CWC Child Welfare Committee
DCPCR Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights
DDA Delhi Development Authority
ECHO Empowerment of Children and Human Rights Organization
FFT Functional Family Therapy
HSBP FIR Harmful Sexual Behaviour Project First Information Report
IPC Indian Penal Code
IRCS Intensive Rehabilitative Custody and Supervision
JJB Juvenile Justice Board
MTFC Multi-Dimensional Treatment Foster Care
NCRB National Crime Records Bureau
NCT National Capital Territory
NLU National Law University
OH Observation home
OJJDP Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
PMS Probation and Mediation Service
PO Probation officer
SC Scheduled Caste

xiii
xiv Abbreviations

SH Special home
SLL Special Local Laws
UNCRC United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
YCJA Youth Criminal Justice Act
YJA Youth Justice Act
YRO Youth Rehabilitation Order
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Age-wise distribution of children in detention centres 23

Table 2.2 Place of residence 26
Table 2.3 Educational status of children 28
Table 2.4 Education of the parents 32
Table 2.5 Parental custody 35
Table 2.6 Marital status of parents 36
Table 3.1 Nature of offences—state-wise 51
Table 3.2 Distribution of major IPC crimes by children as per NCRB
report in states under study 53
Table 3.3 Motive for the commission of offences 73
Table 3.4 Age of first commission of offence 77
Table 3.5 Recidivism among the children in detention centres 79
Table 4.1 Parental involvement in children’s lives 104
Table 4.2 Parental conflict & disciplining 110
Table 4.3 Family disruptions 136

xv
 1
The Context

Children are life’s precious gifts, to be treasured and carefully nurtured:

‘They are persons who are going to carry on what you have started. They
are going to sit where you are sitting and when you are gone, attend to
those things you think are important. The fate of humanity is in their
hands’ (Abraham Lincoln). Subsequently, every nation and every family
wants their children to be prepared for the future. And no parent or soci-
ety wishes them to be fearful, shy, inconsiderate or objectionable; they
want them to be happy, secure and reach their full potential. In the pro-
cess of their growth, however, many children acquire undesirable charac-
teristics and fail to achieve a sense of security and an attitude of respect
for either themselves or others. In many cases, the parents love them and
try to provide their best for their growth and development. Paradoxically
enough, however, the more they are cared for, the more suffering and
despair are given by them (Musa, 2010). Moreover, due to the rapid pace
of development of science and technology, enormous changes are occur-
ring in every sphere of society, particularly in relation to the family as an
institution. Consequently, regardless of their gender, social origin and
country of residence, children are subject not only to individual risks but
also new individual opportunities—of which some are beneficial and

© The Author(s) 2019 1

S. Parackal, R. Panicker, Children and Crime in India, Palgrave Advances in
Criminology and Criminal Justice in Asia,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16589-5_1
2 S. Parackal and R. Panicker

some potentially harmful. Children often take advantage of illegal oppor-

tunities and commit offences against others or endanger their lives by
becoming addicts to unhealthy habits (Crisan, 2005).
Juvenile delinquency is, therefore, a fact and a growing concern both
nationally and globally. Of late, the media has been reporting about an
increased engagement in the sphere of delinquency of children. From
minor acts of abuse, fights and theft, they are now involved in serious
offences like rape, armed robbery and murder, suggesting that there is
something radically wrong with societal dynamics. The rate of such acts
by children destroying their childhood has made it a subject of heated
debate in different fields such as psychology, sociology, law and medicine
and it has been referred to differently by various fields. Such individuals
may be labelled as “children with deviation of conduct” (medical descrip-
tion), “non-adapted young” (sociological term), “problem children”
(psycho-­educational classification) and “infant delinquents” (jurid-
ical term).
The term Juvenile delinquency is derived from two Latin words: ‘iuve-
nilis’ (meaning ‘young’) and ‘delinquentia’ (meaning ‘fault, crime’). Yet
this concept is understood and explained differently by various authors.
Sadler (1992) states that some people regard that any boy or girl as delin-
quent who wears tight jeans, leather jackets or unusual clothes, has a
strange haircut or uses a particular type of street slang. Coleman (1996),
on the other hand, suggested that juvenile delinquents are boys or girls
who have shown a pattern of breaking the law, whether or not they have
come to trial. He pointed out accurately that the term delinquent is inap-
propriate to describe a person who, for one reason or another, breaks a
rule only once and unintentionally. According to Reckless (1956), it
applies to the “violation of criminal code and/or pursuit of certain pat-
terns of behaviour disapproved of children and young adolescents.” Thus,
by and large juvenile delinquency refers to a large variety of disapproved
behaviour carried out by teenagers and adolescents and for which some
kind of punishment or corrective measure is justified in the public inter-
est. Mitterauer (1993), in the light of the above view, stated that some
acts considered as offences for juveniles are not classified as offences if
committed by adults. Such acts are status offence and include truancy
from schools, drinking alcohol, gambling.
 1 The Context 3

In India, every person below the age of 18 is classified as a child. The

age of criminality, however, starts from the child’s seventh year, one of the
lowest ages in the world. Those below this age even if they commit an
offence and are covered legally by the term delinquency are not labelled
as delinquents; rather, they are labelled as problem children because it is
felt that at this stage they are not sufficiently mature to distinguish
between legal and illegal acts and between right and wrong. An offence or
crime should be viewed not merely as an act of breaching the laws of the
state; it is also the violation of the sanctity of one human being by another
and can be seen as a destruction of the social fabric (UNICEF, 2003).
Thus, both age and behavioural infractions prohibited in the statutes are
important aspects of the concept of juvenile delinquency.
The increase in juvenile delinquency at the global level, as recorded in
official and unofficial sources, has rung alarm bells in the society, evoking
the conscience of the international community to address the issue with
the necessary urgency as they do not presumably have the same intent as
that of an adult. Consequently, a series of discussions, deliberations and
debates paved the way for the declaration of several international stan-
dards that contain provisions on alternatives to the deprivation of liberty
in the field of juvenile justice. There are at least 15 different international
human rights instruments and related guidelines, dating from 1955 to
2009, containing a staggering total of 77 articles, rules, guidelines or
provisions which support diversion and alternatives for children who are
in conflict with the law. Of these, 77 articles and provisions: ten are
legally binding on states which have ratified the relevant instruments [of
which four are from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child (UNCRC)—Articles 37(b), 40.1, 40.3 (b) and 40.2 (iv).
According to Articles 37 and 40 of the United Nations Convention on
the Rights of the Child (1989), children in conflict with the law have the
right to treatment that promotes their sense of dignity and worth, takes
into account their age and aims to reintegrate them into society. In addi-
tion, placing children in conflict with the law in a closed facility should be
a measure of last resort, to be avoided whenever possible. This convention
prohibits the imposition of the death penalty and sentences of life impris-
onment for offences committed by persons under the age of 18. Similarly,
the General Comment Number 10 (GC10) on “Children’s Rights in
Juvenile Justice”, the 1990 United Nations Guidelines for the Prevention of
4 S. Parackal and R. Panicker

Juvenile Delinquency (“The Riyadh Guidelines”), the 1990 United

Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty
(“The Havana Rules”) and the UN Guidelines for Action on Children in
the Criminal Justice System promote the use of alternatives to the depri-
vation of liberty and emphasize that detention of children who are alleged
as, accused of or recognized as having infringed the law should be directed
towards a restorative purpose and deprivation should always be a measure
of last resort (Meuwese, 2003).
In line with international standards, most State parties have recognized
that the child is to be ‘treated’ and rehabilitated and that the procedure
and the disposition are, therefore, to be ‘clinical’ rather than ‘punitive’. In
the case of a child, the apparent rigidities, technicalities and harshness in
both substantiative and procedural law are to be considered extraneous to
his treatment. Accordingly, most of the nations have modified their jus-
tice systems to guarantee the rights of children as set forth in the interna-
tional instruments and guidelines. India, as a signatory to most of the
aforementioned international instruments, has obligated itself to work
towards ensuring all the rights enshrined therein to all its children. In
tune with this approach, the nation has formulated and enacted a specific
piece of exclusive legislation—the Juvenile Justice Act in 2000 and later
amended in 2006—to treat children in need of care and protection and
children in conflict with the law. This Act, which forms the central legis-
lation for children in India, advocates strongly for the importance of the
restoration and rehabilitation of the so-called Children in Conflict with
Law (CCL). This presumes that putting children behind bars and sepa-
rating them from their families and communities has a seriously damag-
ing impact on their physical, mental and social development.
Most of these child offenders require help from the social welfare sys-
tem rather than the juvenile justice system. Nevertheless, some require
being sent to detention centres such as observation homes, special homes
and after-care homes, where they can be helped to become good citizens.
However, this approach should only be adopted as the last resort. In
India, crimes are usually classified into crimes under the Indian Penal
Code (IPC) and crimes under the Special and Local Laws (SLL). The
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is the only available national
resource to understand the magnitude of juvenile delinquency in India.
 1 The Context 5

According to the NCRB report of 2014, the number of total crimes by

juveniles (IPC + SLL) has increased from 43,506 in 2013 to 48,230 in
2014, showing an overall increase of 10.9%. While the IPC crimes by
juveniles recorded a 5.7% increase in 2014 over the previous year, it was
21.8% in SLL crimes during the same period. Crimes committed by
children under the Indian Penal Code increased, with a reported registra-
tion of 33,526 cases in 2014 (NCRB, 2014) compared with 31,725 in
2013. Nevertheless, in 2013 and 2014 the share of IPC crimes by chil-
dren to total IPC crimes remained constant at 1.2%. Adolescent crimes
under the SLL, on the other hand, increased from 4136 in 2013 to
5039 in 2014 (ibid.).
There are substantial gender differences in respect of the number of
crimes committed by children in India. In 2014, of the 48,320 children
apprehended, 46,638 were boys and 1,592 were girls, meaning that girls
accounted for just 3.3% of the total number of children apprehended in
India in 2014 (ibid.). The official statistics on juvenile delinquency sug-
gest a relatively low level in a developing country like India, where almost
42% of its population are below 18 years of age. The National Crime
Records Bureau reports, however, indicate a marginal increase in offences
by children. Yet media reports highlight a spurt in the commission of
crimes/offences by juveniles. However, the increasing rate of apprehen-
sion does not necessarily mean that crime had grown as the apprehension
rate can be influenced by a variety of factors: changes in policy, in police
practices, the growth of the child population and in the number of
offenders arrested per offence. Moreover, NCRB reports are found to be
based on the First Information Report (FIR) registered, which is only at
an allegation stage and that children are often found to be innocent of
the offences.
The involvement of children in offences seems to have serious socio-­
economic implications. Approximately 52.9% of children in conflict
with law had either never attended school or had education only up to
the primary level. Moreover, a large proportion of children (55.6%)
belong to poor families (those with an annual income up to Rs. 25,000/;
NCRB, 2014). Most of these children, whether they be petty offenders
or serious offenders, are children who face challenges in terms of their
care and protection and in their relationships with their families,
6 S. Parackal and R. Panicker

c­ommunities and society. Their lives, choices and opportunities are

affected to a great extent by the communities being increasingly frag-
mented through urbanization, chronic poverty, social and interpersonal
violence and increased pressure from external influences such as commer-
cialization and materialism. Yet the majority of these children are treated
as if they are all committing serious and violent offences and are often put
through the criminal justice system that is designed for those who pose a
real and serious risk to the public. People perceive that these children get
what they deserve and have very little concern about their unique devel-
opmental stage features like impulsiveness, risk taking, hyperactivity,
their lack of future orientation, impaired decision making and immature
status and their susceptibility to the surroundings which result in impaired
decision making. By being put through the criminal justice system, chil-
dren are exposed to situations and environments that are inherently vio-
lent and that remove them from the social and familial environment that
is supposed to ‘socialize’ them. Their rights to development, protection
and participation are violated although they are expected to learn about
responsibility in the artificial environment of detention where others
make choices for them, imposed rules to define their everyday living and
decide their every move and where all the challenges they faced in the real
world are temporarily removed, but not dealt with. Once they emerge
from their period of detention they are back into the same context and
environment that led to their offending in the first place. Thus, their
contact with the criminal justice system can be detrimental to their devel-
opment because of the repressive and punitive nature of the system
(Martin & Williams, 2005).
All international standards and national legislations on the administra-
tion of juvenile justice have as their overarching aim the social integration
and guarantee for the respect of their rights. The achievement of such an
objective demands an in-depth analysis of the status of children in con-
flict with the law, focusing on why they resort to offences in order to
effectively implement the laws on juvenile justice and the welfare system.
The development and designing of any measures to curb the incidence of
children’s involvement offences essentially requires the introduction of
prevention measures. Such offence control will never succeed without
unfolding the root causes that prompted him/her to commit such acts.
 1 The Context 7

Nevertheless, probing the real reasons for the involvement of children in

offences and protecting their childhood years was not a high priority on
either the political or the justice agenda.
Researchers and personnel working for child welfare have sought for
generations to explain why juveniles engage in criminal deviance. Is their
behaviour a matter of individual choice? Can our understanding of biol-
ogy and psychology explain delinquency? To what extent do environ-
mental factors influence juvenile deviance? Are juvenile delinquents likely
to become adult criminals?
Yet there is very little evidence-based data in this regard. It is generally
perceived that there may be a myriad of causes and reasons for the law-­
breaking behaviour of children in India. Most of the literature consider a
range of socio-economic and psychological reasons. Poverty, broken
homes, family tensions, emotional abuse, rural–urban migration, a break-
down in social values and joint family systems, atrocities and abuses by
parents or guardians, a faulty educational system and the influence of
cinema and TV. All of this can then be exacerbated by the unhealthy liv-
ing conditions of slums and such other conditions contributes to the
explanation of the phenomena of offences by children.
Over the years, a large number of theories have been developed to
attempt to identify and explain the causes of juvenile and criminal devi-
ance. The earliest in this regard was the attempt to explain through the
then-accepted notion that both natural and supernatural forces affect
human fortunes and behaviour. Later came the classical theorists, whose
studies focused on individual responsibility for delinquency and crimi-
nality. Their approach was grounded in free will theories of causation,
which apply rationalism to explain each criminal’s individual decision to
break the law. The biological explanations that followed stated the effects
of congenital traits on human behaviour through the theories of physiog-
nomy, phrenology and atavism. According to these, persons with biologi-
cal inferiority tend to behave in a deviant manner. The biological inquiry
continues unabated, with new fields of inquiry such as DNA research
providing new bases to explore the causes of delinquency and criminality.
The explanations by social sciences such as psychology and sociology that
succeeded the above gave a rich diversity to theories of causation.
Psychological explanations are grounded in several research traditions,
8 S. Parackal and R. Panicker

such as psychoanalysis, conditioning and psychopathology. These theo-

ries refer to the engagement of people in offences through difference in
IQ and personality disorders like the psychopaths, sociopaths and anti-­
social personalities. Sociological theories such as social disorganization
theory, social control theory, strain/anomie theory, labelling theory, ratio-
nal choice theory and social learning theory show that no person is born
as a criminal; rather, they are shaped into a criminal/delinquent through
his/her interaction and relationship with the environment. Sociological
approaches examine the effects of social structures and processes on the
behaviour of individuals and groups of people. Societal conditions theo-
retically affect people’s collective perceptions of the availability of oppor-
tunities and the intensity of deprivations, meaning that delinquency and
offence are reactions to certain types of environments. Critical theory is
counter-intuitive because it challenges orthodox theories of criminal cau-
sation. In essence, they lay the blame for delinquency and offence on
socio-economic and political inequalities. However, in isolation none of
the theories could explain the why of criminal/delinquent involvement.
A mixture or combination of different theories could shed light to the
offending behaviour of people/children to a great extent.
In addition to the theoretical explanations to the causes for the involve-
ment of children in criminal activities, various studies have posited vary-
ing causes for the engagement of children in deviant behaviour. According
to Charlesworth (2000), parental disciplinary styles can have an impact
on child behaviour. Parry-Jones and Queloz (1991) state that it is widely
accepted that urban areas are associated with higher rates of psychosocial
problems, including juvenile delinquency, problem families, adult crimi-
nality and adult psychiatric disorder. Furthermore, the nature of the rela-
tionship between features of the environment and the mental health of
individuals is an extremely complex subject. Harvey and Fine (2004)
examined the narratives of children whose parents were divorced and
found that some of these children carried emotions of anger and rage
within themselves which later led them to being out of control and to
commit criminal acts (p. 34).
Most of the above explanations and reasons suggest that deviance is pri-
marily an environmental and social problem. No child is born as either a
law-abiding or a deviant child; often he/she develops into one through his/
 1 The Context 9

her association and interaction with others. Thus, children in conflict with
the law are not a specific type of human being born with any innate, physi-
cal, mental or emotional characteristics. They, like any other children, want
to love, to be loved and to have their need for security and recognition satis-
fied. Denial of these basic needs leads to maladjustment, resulting in aggres-
sive, non-conforming and deviant behaviour. Further, their adolescent
development stage is marked by drastic physical, emotional, psychological
and cognitive changes, making him adventurous, less future-oriented,
impulsive and susceptible to peer influences. Thus, the deviant behaviour
of children is, to a certain extent, a normative part of their growth and
development which does not persist when they grow to be adults. Most
become law-abiding as they get older and only a minor percentage grow to
be persistent or habitual offenders, which might be mostly due to the inter-
play of a variety of individual and social factors and conditions.
It is quite dismaying to note that while a lot has been spoken about
child welfare and child protection, little effort has been made to penetrate
into this phenomenon of offences by children and unearth the factors
that push or pull children into it in order to check the same. Apart from
the theories and general literature available, there is a serious dearth of
empirical and evidence-based information on the phenomenon. In order
to be effective and efficient in achieving its overarching aim of restorative
and rehabilitation of children in conflict with the law, the Juvenile Justice
System should identify the push and pull factors that predispose children
to being in conflict with the law. It is within this context that this national
study on children in conflict with the law was undertaken by Butterflies—
one of the pioneering organizations in India committed to the rights-­
based development of children, with an intent to explore into the various
factors that lead children onto the wrong side of the law facilitating
appropriate development and designing of strategies to prevent offences
by children and also to make the juvenile justice system more proactive
and efficient ensuring justice to them. Moreover, it ventures to unveil the
gaps in the parenting skills, community control and responsiveness of
schools to the aggressive and deviant behaviour of children, implying the
necessity for a check on offensive behaviours of children and thereby
promote the development of children as productive citizens—the future
of the nation.
10 S. Parackal and R. Panicker

1.1 Objectives
To explore the factors that predisposes children to being in conflict with
the law in India. The specific objectives of this book are as follows:

• To gather quantitative and qualitative data on the profile of children in

conflict with law in the four states of India.
• To establish trends in offences committed by children.
• To identify and describe the factors that predispose children to being
in conflict with the law.
• To facilitate stakeholder discussion and collect practical and strategic
recommendations and suggestions to prevent children falling into
conflict with the law.

1.2 Research Areas

The Union of India comprises of 29 states and 7 union territories. In this
study, we selected four states, using purposive sampling method to con-
sider various characteristics, such as the representation of various parts of
the nation, socio-demographic characteristics, magnitude and specific
features of children in conflict with the law (cosmopolitan nature, geo-
graphical location, increased involvement in serious offence), etc. Further,
the positive attitude of the concerned authorities of the states under study
also influenced the selection of these states. Thus, Delhi (north), Odisha
(east), Tamil Nadu and Kerala (south) were selected for the study.

1.2.1 Profile of the Areas

1.2.1.1 Union Territory of Delhi

The Union Territory of Delhi covering an area of 1484 sq. km. lies on the
Northern part of India, with a population of 16.3 million people (2011).
It borders the Indian states of Haryana on the north, west and south and
Uttar Pradesh (UP) to the east. The density of population per sq. km. is
 1 The Context 11

about 11,297 and this figure is alarming as it is a much higher density

than any other state. The literacy rate in the state is about 86%, a figure
that has always been high due to the city being the country’s capital and
home to some of the country’s most important educational institutions.
The sex ratio in Delhi leaves a lot to be desired as it is among the worst in
the country, at 866 women for 1000 men. The NCT has 11 districts and
5 municipal corporations and is the largest commercial centre in
the north.
The Department of Women and Child Development of the
Government of Delhi is the nodal agency for providing services to women
and children. The department implements and monitors the execution of
the Juvenile Justice Act in its territory. Delhi Juvenile Justice Care and
Protection Rules 2002 have been notified on August 19, 2002 u/s 68 of
this Act. The NCT has already created Special Juvenile Police Units in
each of the 11 police districts and railways and IGI Airport units to co-­
ordinate and improve the police treatment of children. Three observation
homes (two for boys and one for girls), one special home (for boys) and
three Juvenile Justice Boards are set up under the Juvenile Justice Act to
handle the cases related to children in conflict with the law. Similarly, to
handle the cases of those children in need of care and protection, NCT
has constituted 6 child welfare committees and has identified 27 NGOs
to set up shelter homes that function as drop-in-centres cum night shel-
ters for children in need of urgent support who are brought to such
homes. Further, seven Children’s Homes are created across the NCT
either by district or by group of districts for the reception of the child in
need of care and protection during the processing of any inquiry and
subsequently for their care, treatment, education, training, development
and rehabilitation.

1.2.1.2 Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu, which covers an area of 130,058 sq. km., lies in the south-
ern part of the Indian peninsula and is bounded by the Eastern Ghats to
the north, the Nilgiri, the Anamalai Hills, and Kerala to the west, by the
Bay of Bengal to the east, the Gulf of Mannar, the Palk Strait to the south
12 S. Parackal and R. Panicker

east, and by the Indian Ocean to the south. According the 2011 Census,
the state is inhabited by a population of 72 million, of which 9.82% are
children below six years of age. It is the seventh most densely populated
state in India, with 555 persons per sq. km. Administratively, the state is
divided into 32 districts. It has 10 City Corporations, 125 municipalities,
529 town panchayats and 12,524 village panchayats. The state literacy
rate has grown, reaching a figure of 80.3% in 2011. Tamil Nadu has his-
torically been an agricultural state and is one of the leading producers of
agricultural products in India. It is the second-largest contributor to
India’s GDP. Services contribute to 45% of the economic activity in the
state, followed by manufacturing (34%) and agriculture (21%). In 2008,
Tamil Nadu was India’s fifth-largest producer of rice. The Cauvery delta
region is known as the Rice Bowl of South India. The state is also one of
the highly industrialized states in India.
The Department of Social Defence of the Government of Tamil Nadu
is responsible for the provision of developmental services to children
found in difficult circumstances and for the girls and women who are in
moral danger and in need of care and rehabilitation. It also works towards
the convergence of all its units for enabling better implementation of
governmental services for children. The department is also providing
institutional and non-institutional services for the rehabilitation of the
children entering the institutions, in addition to involving the Non-­
Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in all of the programmes to ensure
protection of the rights of the children and their overall development.
The institutions under the control of the department provide care, train-
ing (educational and vocational) and rehabilitation to the children who
are neglected and children in conflict with law coming under the provi-
sions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2000.
The state has also constituted 18 child welfare committees and 8 Juvenile
Justice Boards to deal with the cases of children in need of care and pro-
tection and children in conflict with law. Similarly, in accordance with
the provisions of the JJ Act, eight observation homes (six by the govern-
ment and two by NGOs) and two special homes (one for boys and one
for girls) are also established in the state. Moreover, three after-care orga-
nizations are functioning to provide rehabilitation to the discharged chil-
dren of children’s homes/special homes for boys and girls. 31 children’s
 1 The Context 13

homes (11 by the government and 20 by NGOs) are also established to

cater exclusively to the needs of children who require care and protection
as ordered by Child Welfare Committees.

1.2.1.3 Kerala

The state of Kerala, which is located at the extreme southern tip of the
Indian subcontinent, is spread over an area of 38863 sq. km., accommo-
dating a population of 33.3 million, with a density of 819 persons per sq.
km. Children below six years of age constitute 10.1% of the state’s total
population. The state has the highest Human Development Index
(0.790—HDR 2011), literacy rate (93.9) and life expectancy (74 years).
For administrative purposes, the state has been divided into 14 districts.
Consequent to the 74th Amendment to the Constitution of India, the
local self-government institutions are to function as the third tier of gov-
ernment and they are constituted of 14 District Panchayats, 152 Block
Panchayats, 978 Grama Panchayats, 60 Municipalities, and 5
Corporations. The agriculture and service sector includes tourism, public
administration, banking and finance, transportation, and communica-
tions forms a major part of the GSDP.
The Social Justice Department of the Government of Kerala is the
department responsible for implementing various schemes related to
women and children. It is responsible for administering the services
intended to provide needed care and protection to women, children,
physically and mentally challenged, destitute, orphans, aged, the infirm
and social deviants like children in need of care and protection, children
in conflict with the law and young, first-time, short-term offenders. The
department is also responsible for the overall implementation and super-
vision of the implementation of the Juvenile Justice Act. In line with the
Juvenile Justice Act, the state has established Juvenile Justice Boards and
Child Welfare Committees in all of the revenue districts of the states as
per the norms set out in the Act. Special Juvenile Police Units have also
been established in most of the districts with the superintendent of
police of the district operating as the nodal officer in each district. At the
state level, an officer at the rank of deputy inspector general is the nodal
14 S. Parackal and R. Panicker

officer. A selection committee has been constituted at the state level to

recruit suitable persons to the board and committees at the district level.
The state has also 14 observations (13 for boys and 1 for girls) and 2
special homes to deal with children in conflict with the law. To shelter
children in need of care and protection, the state has recognised eight
juvenile homes—six for boys and two for girls.

1.2.1.4 Odisha

The state of Odisha, formerly known as Orissa, is located in the north-­

eastern part of the country. It is bounded by the states of Jharkhand and
West Bengal to the north and north east, by the Bay of Bengal to the
east, and by the states of Andhra Pradesh to the south and Chhattisgarh
to the west. It is spread over an area of 60110 square miles and is inhab-
ited by a population of 41947358 (2011 census), of which 21,201,678
(50.54%) are male and 20,745,680 (49.46%) are female; that is, there
are 978 females per 1000 males. The population density is 269 per sq.
km. Odisha is the 9th-largest state by area in India, and the 11th-largest
by population. According to the 2011 Census, the literacy rate is 73%,
with 82% of males and 64% of females being literate. The dominant
ethnic group is the Oriya people, and Oriya is the official language.
Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes constitute almost two-fifths of
the population of Odisha. The tribal peoples are divided into three lin-
guistic groups: the speakers of Munda languages of the Austroasiatic
language family; the speakers of various languages of the Dravidian
family; and the speakers of Oriya (or Odia), which is an Indo-Aryan
language. Hindus make up the overwhelming majority of the popula-
tion of Odisha, with Muslims being the largest religious minority
group. Other linguistic minorities in the state include Bengali, Hindi,
Telugu and Santali. The state has a birth rate of 23.2 per 1,000 people
per year, a death rate of 9.1 per 1,000 people per year, an infant mortal-
ity rate of 65 per 1000 live births and a maternal mortality rate of 358
per 1,000,000 live births. Odisha has a Human Development Index of
0.579 in 2004. The state has been divided into 30 administrative dis-
tricts, with the collector at their head.
 1 The Context 15

In the state of Odisha, the Department of Women and Child

Development is the nodal agency for the implementation of the Juvenile
Justice Act. This department has constituted ten JJBs for handling the
cases of children in conflict with the law. In accordance with the 2000
Act, the department has established three observation homes and three
special homes for boys and one observation home for girls. In contrast to
the other states, each observation home in the state has a number of them
set apart as a special home where children who are under trial and found
guilty mingle together. Similarly, to address the issues of children in need
of care and protection, the state has formed 30 child welfare committees.

1.3 Research Methodology

The present research makes use of qualitative, explorative, descriptive
and contextual methods of research through unstructured and struc-
tured interviews which were carried out with various stakeholders.
Being a party to the UNCRC, the country has established a separate
legislation titled Juvenile Justice Act 2000 to deal with cases of children
in conflict with law and children in need of care and protection. Under
the Act, all states are to establish different structures such as Juvenile
Justice Boards, observation homes, special homes and after-care homes
for dealing with cases related to children in conflict with law. The
research areas under study have already set up a number of such institu-
tions across their geographical area though inadequate in number in a
few states.
The population of the study consisted of two groups. Group 1—
Children who are apprehended and detained at various observation and
special homes in the selected states; and Group 2—Other stakeholders
such as parents of the children in observation and special homes, the law
enforcement authority, the superintendent of the homes and teachers/
counsellors of prestigious schools in the selected states. The inclusion of
teachers/counsellors of prestigious schools was conceived to capture the
phenomenon of risk and violent behaviour by children in a more com-
prehensive manner. Often, children who are apprehended and detained
are those in the lower classes of society, giving a picture that juvenile
Another random document with
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meeting of the Baking Society decided that bread should be supplied
to shops only of customer societies.
 A RIGHT OF WAY CASE.
A paragraph of a rather peculiar character appears in the last
minute for 1885. At that time the committee were in the thick of their
preparations for the new bakery, and must have been extremely
busy. Nevertheless, some time during the month, a letter was
received which must have worried the secretary and the sub-
committee not a little. It was signed “Thomas Mann,” and was as
follows:—
“Gentlemen,—As aiders and abettors in the Kilbarchan Right of Way case I
have to inform you that the expenses, amounting to £850. are still unpaid, and
that unless an arrangement is made with my law agent within eight days an
action will be raised against you in the Court of Session for the full amount.”
The manager had replied wishing to know on what authority Mr
Mann had taken it upon himself to state that the Society were aiders
and abettors in the action referred to; and in reply was referred to a
paragraph in the Paisley newspaper of 15th July 1883, in which the
Co-operative Baking Society, Kinning Park, was published as one of
the abettors. Mr Mann had no doubt that the statement was correct,
and warned the Society that it was necessary to attend to his former
letter at once to save future trouble. The Bakery board replied to
threat by threat. If any further communication was received from Mr
Mann, the matter was to be put into the hands of the Society’s law
agent, who was to raise an action against him for trying to extort
money on false pretences, as the Society had never paid any money
to assist in the “Right of Way” case. Nothing more seems to have
been heard of the subject, for nothing further appears in the minutes
regarding it.
In August 1887 the building committee, having completed their
labours, were thanked for their services, and dissolved. The
buildings, plant, and stocks in the new bakery were insured for
£16,000, while the buildings and plant in St James Street were
insured for £2,000. About this time the directors were called on to
consider some grievances under which the employees, and
particularly the vanmen, alleged that they suffered. The first of those
had reference to attendance at the stables on Sundays. The
committee made investigations, and came to the conclusion that no
grievance was suffered. Attendance on Sundays to look after the
comfort of the horses was not work, they decided, but an act of
mercy, which was not paid for anywhere. The other grievance—that
the vanmen by the nature of their work did not get regular holidays
“and had no opportunity of going to the coast with their families”—
the directors thought well founded, and they decided to allow three
consecutive days to each man in future, in addition to the holidays
they at present received; stipulating, however, that no two men were
to be on holiday at the same time.
 A NEW VENTURE.
In September, after the new bakery was opened, the Society began
the baking of morning rolls, a branch of trade which immediately
became popular with the members of the societies. For this trade two
light vans and two fast horses were purchased, and the result was
that not only was a large trade in breakfast rolls done, but the bread
trade increased rapidly also. The baking of rolls had, as a matter of
fact, cut the last link which chained some of the societies to the
private baker. The bakers did not surrender the trade of the societies
without a struggle, however. Finding that they were ousted from the
roll trade, they turned their attention to buns as a means of
recapturing the lost trade, and for a time they were successful with a
number of the societies. But the Bakery directors were alive to the
danger, and ere long they also were baking buns at M‘Neil Street.
 THE CHAIRMAN RETIRES.
Having seen the new premises in full operation, Mr Fraser came to
the conclusion that the time had come when he should resign his
position as president of the Society. During his seven years of office
he had seen the trade doubled; he had seen the handsome new
bakery erected and opened; and he had seen the Society established
in an unassailable position. While a member of the committee,
during the presidency of Mr Brown, and while he had been
president, he had been a hard worker for the success of the Society,
and well deserved the words of eulogy in which Mr Slater conveyed
the thanks of the committee to him at the last meeting of the board
before his retiral. He was succeeded by Mr John Ferguson, Glasgow
Eastern Society.
Inside a month or two, he was followed into retirement by Mr
Thomas Slater, secretary. Mr Slater had been elected secretary in
1875 when Mr Smith became manager, and had discharged the
duties of his office faithfully and well. At the time of his retiral, and
indeed for many years before then, he had the longest record of
service on the board of the Society. Mr Peter Glasse, St George,
succeeded him.
 INCREASES ALL ROUND.
At the end of 1887 the Society was doing a trade of over 410 sacks
per week, and in the first month of the new year 600 new shares
were granted to societies. By the end of the 77th quarter the trade
had risen to 446 sacks per week, and a dividend of 1/3 was paid. The
increases which were taking place in the numbers of shares held by
the societies pointed to increases in membership, and therefore to
opportunities for increased trade by the Federation. The directors
were fully alive to this phase of the subject, and although they were
still a considerable distance from producing the full capacity of the
bakery, it was becoming evident that if the present rate of increase
continued that limit would soon be reached. At the same time they
could be pardoned if they felt that the delegates were not as
appreciative of the work which was being done as they might have
been. This lack of appreciation was shown in a remarkable and
unprecedented manner at the 76th quarterly meeting of the Society
when, by a majority of two votes, it was decided to reduce the
payments made to them for their services from 3/ to 2/ per meeting.
Lack of appreciation could hardly have gone further short of asking
them to resign in a body. It was a very shabby return for the years of
strenuous work which had made the Baking Society that outstanding
instance of Co-operative enterprise which it had become. The
directors went on with their work calmly, however, content to merit,
even if they did not receive, the appreciation to which their efforts for
the success of the Federation entitled them.
 CHAPTER IX.
M‘NEIL STREET: RAPID DEVELOPMENTS.

A BISCUIT FACTORY—FURTHER EXTENSIONS—THE U.C.B.S.

AND THE S.C.W.S.—AN ACCIDENT—RESIGNATION OF
FOREMAN BAKER—CO-OPERATIVE FAILURES—THE
MANAGER RESIGNS—FIRST GLASGOW BOYCOTT—A NEW
PRESIDENT—MAJORITY CELEBRATIONS—THE DINNER—
STILL MORE EXTENSIONS—THE INFLUENCE OF
CONGRESS—EXTENSIONS AGAIN—ST JAMES STREET
PREMISES SOLD—NEW BUILDING COLLAPSES—MORE
BUILDING—BUILDING DEPARTMENT STARTED.

The Baking Society had now entered on a period of extraordinary

development. Department was added to department and extension
followed extension with marvellous rapidity. It seemed, indeed, as if
the spirit of Co-operation had only been waiting for a suitable
habitation in order to show the great things of which it was capable.
In the six years—1888–1894—the output of the Society rose from
466 sacks per week to 1,254, and the number of departments in the
bakery from two to seven, while tearooms had been opened, a
purveying department was being carried on, and a workshops and
trades department was in operation. The sales for the 77th quarter
were £12,438; by the end of the year they were £16,490, and by the
88th, which, however, was a fourteen week quarter, they were
£27,210. The trade had more than doubled in three years. In the
same period the membership, which had been thirty-six societies at
the end of the 77th quarter, had grown to forty-six at the end of the
88th.
 Before the Society had been six months installed in M‘Neil Street
the committee were beginning to have visions of congestion such as
they had experienced in St James Street, unless they took time by the
forelock and made arrangements which would enable them to
grapple with their ever-increasing trade before it again overwhelmed
them. The first business they decided to tackle was that of erecting a
biscuit factory, where they could produce fancy biscuits of all kinds.
Hitherto they had been getting such biscuits as they were able to sell
from a firm of manufacturers in the city, and were having them
invoiced through the S.C.W.S. Investigation showed that this mode
of procedure was one which was not profitable to the Society, but, at
the time when the investigation was made, the directors were not in
a position to do anything; and when they secured the ground on
which to build their new factory the congestion in their bread
department made instant provision for that department the premier
necessity. But now that they had the bread difficulty settled for a
short time they turned their attention to the question of biscuits.
Provision had been made in the new building for a travelling oven,
but its installation had been held over while the more important
work was being carried out. Early in 1888, however, it was decided to
purchase a biscuit cutting machine, and one similar to the working
model which was being shown in Glasgow Exhibition was ordered, at
a cost of £258. They did not act without caution, however, for before
the machine was purchased they wrote to the manager of Crumpsall
bakery for his opinion of the biscuit machines made by the firm from
which they proposed to purchase. With the object of ensuring that
everything possible would be done to promote the sale of the biscuits
when they were made, the committee also approached the directors
of the Wholesale Society as to the likelihood of that federation
becoming agent for the U.C.B.S. in the biscuit trade. They were
informed that the Wholesale Society viewed the proposal favourably,
and were likely to adopt it when the occasion arose. The societies
were all circularised with the view of ascertaining what was the
aggregate trade in biscuits which might be expected.
 FURTHER EXTENSIONS.
Hitherto the committee had only the erection of a biscuit factory in
mind, and plans for that building had been prepared, and in January
of 1889 were considered by them. By February, however, they came
to the decision that a biscuit factory was not enough. The trade now
exceeded 600 sacks per week, an increase of 200 sacks inside the
year, and they were of opinion that further extensions were necessary
to meet the growing demand for bread. They therefore asked the
quarterly meeting for permission to spend between £3,000 and
£4,000 on the erection of a new wing to the bakery. This power was
granted readily.
They were now ready to proceed, but they had learned something
from their experience while the first portion of M‘Neil Street
premises was being erected, so they decided to consult with the
architect as to whether it would be advisable to put the whole of the
work in connection with the erection of the building into the hands of
one contractor, so as to get a time limit inserted in the contract. The
architect, however, was not in favour of placing all the work in the
hands of one contractor. The firm of masons who had built the
earlier section were again successful in obtaining the contract for the
building work. The contracts for the whole of the building work were
fixed for a total sum of £5,532. A few weeks later a contract was fixed
up for the erection of a travelling biscuit oven, at a cost of £200.
The new building when completed added very considerably to the
Society’s productive power. It contained on the first flat the pastry
bakehouse with four ovens; on the second flat the fancy biscuit
department with one travelling oven and four ordinary ovens; the
third flat was devoted to the operations of the biscuit and pastry
packing workers; while on the fourth flat was the new oatcake
bakery. The whole of the new wing was finished and ready to start
operations at the beginning of April 1890, and not before it was
required, for the average output had grown by then to 715 sacks per
week, fifteen sacks more than the first building in M‘Neil Street had
been erected to produce.
 THE U.C.B.S. AND THE S.C.W.S.
At the end of 1888 the Wholesale Society had become members of
the Baking Society, and had taken out 240 shares. This was done,
doubtless, in view of the fact that the Wholesale Society had
consented to act as agents for the Baking Society’s biscuits. On the
other hand, the trade which was being done in flour with the
Wholesale Society was far from satisfactory, and at a meeting of the
Baking Society’s committee, which took place in February of 1889,
attention was called by the sub-committee to the fact that, of over
2,000 sacks of flour which had been purchased during the month,
only 300 sacks had been bought from the Wholesale Society. It was
agreed to call the attention of the Wholesale directors to this fact,
and to state that the trade was going past them because their price
was higher than the same flour was being purchased at elsewhere. As
a result of this letter, the Wholesale Society appointed a deputation
to meet with a deputation of the directors of the Baking Society for
the purpose of considering the trading relations between the two
societies. Exactly what the result of the meeting was, however, is not
shown in the minutes; all that these contain being the statement that
Mr M‘Culloch gave a very full report of what had taken place. From
the frequency with which this subject had been cropping up in recent
years, however, it was evident that there was something wrong
somewhere. At this late date it is not possible to do more than guess
at the reasons why the Wholesale Society was not in a position to
compete, but it was probably owing to the fact that the Baking
Society was now so large a purchaser of flour that it was able to buy
from the millers on as good terms as the Wholesale Society itself
could do.
 AN ACCIDENT.
Notwithstanding the large number of vehicles which the Society
had on the road, it had been wonderfully free from accidents of a
serious nature. Hitherto the killing of the Tramway Company’s horse
had been the most serious, and the results of that accident had been
serious, not so much because of the accident itself, as because of the
litigation which followed. Early in 1889, however, an accident
occurred on the Albert Bridge, which although, fortunately, not so
serious as it might have been, yet served to impress on the vanmen in
the service of the Society the necessity for caution when driving
through the streets of the city. Two men were run down on the bridge
by one of the Society’s vans and injured, and the vanman was
arrested and fined. The Society agreed to pay the fine, and also
settled with the injured men for £10, but the vanman was dismissed
from the service of the Society.
About this time a petition was again received from the vanmen
with reference to holidays and Sunday labour. The men wished the
three days’ holidays which they were allowed increased to six days,
while they also wished payment for attending to the horses on
Sundays. The committee could not see their way to make any further
concession of holidays, but they agreed that men who had to spend a
full day in the stable on Sundays should receive a day’s pay. This was
probably the first occasion in Glasgow on which it was recognised
that wages paid to vanmen and carters were for a six-day week, and
that work on the seventh day should be paid for. In this matter as in
so many others the Baking Society were pioneers, and it was not until
more than twenty years had passed that the trade union was able to
enforce all over the city the rule that Sunday work in the stables
should be paid for.
 RESIGNATION OF FOREMAN BAKER.
At the end of the 79th quarter Mr Lang, who had been foreman
baker with the Society during all the time they had been in St James
Street, resigned his situation, and a Mr Marshall was appointed. Mr
Marshall came to the Society with excellent testimonials, but,
somehow or other, after his appointment the number of complaints
with regard to the quality of the bread increased steadily, and at
times came in from a dozen societies at once. He was interviewed
repeatedly by the committee and the necessity of maintaining a high
standard in bread was impressed on him, but little improvement
took place. At length it was discovered by the sub-committee that he
was absent from work without leave, and he was suspended by them,
and at the next meeting of the full committee was dismissed, and Mr
Robert Fraser was appointed. From Mr Fraser’s appointment
complaints became much less frequent.
There were districts where Co-operation was not yet firmly
established, and through the policy of the directors, which made for
helping societies wherever possible, small sums were still being lost
occasionally. The next society to close its doors was Clippens. For
some time it had been in low water, and as the Federation was
finding it impossible to obtain payment the supply of bread was
stopped. The committee of the Renfrewshire Co-operative
Conference Association undertook, however, to try and get that
association to become security for payment, and supplies were again
granted, but only for a short time as, when the matter came before
the Conference, the delegates refused to accept any responsibility. It
was then arranged that payment should be made for the bread on
delivery, and that payments should be made periodically for the
purpose of reducing the debt of the society. In a very short time this
arrangement also was departed from, and the society shortly
afterwards collapsed, the assets only paying ½ per £ of the debts
owing. There were other societies which were not paying their
accounts regularly, and on several occasions these were written to
and requested to make prompt payments. About this time, also,
Cessnock Society went into liquidation, but were able to pay about
twenty shillings in the pound.
 RESIGNATION OF MANAGER.
Mr David Smith had been manager of the Society from the time
when Mr Robert Craig resigned, in the summer of 1875; while prior
to that time he had acted as secretary, and he had been a member of
the committee from the first year of the Society’s existence, having
been the representative of St Rollox Society. He had thus an
unbroken acquaintance with the work of the Society as member of
committee, secretary, and manager for almost twenty years; but the
time had now arrived when he decided to sever his connection, and
so, in October 1889, he intimated to the committee that he was
resigning in order to commence business for himself. His resignation
was accepted, and at the same meeting a special sub-committee was
appointed to make inquiries from the heads of the various
departments with the object of ascertaining whether it was possible
to carry on the business without a general manager. The result of this
inquiry was that the committee decided to rearrange the methods of
business by giving each departmental manager full control of his
department under the committee, thus obviating the necessity of
appointing a general manager in the meantime. Instead of a general
manager it was decided to appoint a cashier and accountant who
should have full control of the office, and Mr James H. Forsyth, from
the accountancy department of the Wholesale Society, was
appointed.
 THE FIRST GLASGOW BOYCOTT.
It was in the later years of the ’Eighties that the first Glasgow
boycott took place, and it struggled on spasmodically for several
years. It had very little evil effect on the progress of the Co-operative
movement, but here and there it served to teach the members and
directors of societies a much-needed lesson as to the value of Co-
operative federal institutions. Particularly was this the case with one
society mentioned in the last chapter as receiving exceptional
conditions from private bakers. As a result of the boycott two out of
the three baking firms which had been supplying the society with
bread refused to do so any longer, with the result that the directors
had to appeal to the Federation to come to their rescue. This the
directors of the Federation were quite ready to do, and so the society
joined the Federation and had bread delivered to its members at a
cost of 1/3 per hour, instead of getting it delivered free and being
relieved from responsibility for bad debts, which were the terms
given by the firms which had failed it when the strain came. Another
society which was suffering through the application of the boycott by
the bakers who supplied it was High Blantyre, which also appealed
for assistance, and shortly afterwards became a member of the
Federation. The membership of the city societies was also growing
very rapidly, and this growth was being reflected in the sales of the
Federation, which showed a progressive increase every quarter. At
the beginning of the 78th quarter the number of societies affiliated
was thirty-six; when the coming-of-age celebrations took place two
years later the membership had increased to forty-two societies
notwithstanding that Clippens and Cessnock societies had ceased to
exist.
 A NEW PRESIDENT.
Another important change which took place at the end of 1889 was
the retiral from the presidency of Mr John Ferguson and the
appointment of Mr Duncan M‘Culloch in his place. This change
marked the beginning of a period of unexampled expansion in the
growth of the Society. Just about this time, also, the Federation was
asked to supply Dumbarton Society with bread while that society’s
own bakery was being rebuilt. The Federation at the end of this year
was making a big bid for the trade of the societies in cakes and buns
for the New Year trade. They had embarked on this trade on a small
scale some time earlier, but the business done for the season 1889–
1890 was important enough to find a place in the minutes as being
25 per cent. greater than that of the previous year.
 MAJORITY CELEBRATIONS.
Early in February 1890, when the new buildings were approaching
completion, it was decided that the opening of these for trade should
also be taken advantage of to celebrate the coming of age of the
Society, and somewhat elaborate provision was made to have a
function which would advertise the business of the Society. It was
agreed that five tickets should be sent to every society doing a trade
of £250, ten tickets to those societies whose trade was between £250
and £500, and fifteen tickets to societies whose trade was over £500.
At a later meeting it was agreed that one bottle of beer be supplied to
each guest attending the celebration.
The celebration of the majority of the Society, combined as it was
with the opening of the new wing of the bakery premises, was a
notable demonstration of the progress of Co-operation. The opening
ceremony was on a grand scale, as in addition to the large number of
delegates who had been invited there were also present a number of
visitors, including some from England. Mr M‘Culloch presided, and
the opening ceremony was performed by Mr Glasse, secretary of the
Society, declaring the premises open in a brilliant speech in which he
traced the history of the Federation from its earliest days, and
commented on the wonderful progress it had made. The occasion, he
said, was one of which the Co-operators of the West of Scotland
should be proud. They were met in buildings which were
magnificent, and which were a fine example of what might be done
by working men. He reminded his audience that only three years had
elapsed since they had met at the same place to open the original
buildings. At that time the committee did not think that an extension
would be required so soon; the only difficulty they had anticipated
being that of finding sufficient trade to keep the bakery fully
occupied. That difficulty was soon overcome, however, and the trade
had increased so rapidly that they were forced to proceed with the
buildings they were met to open that day. How necessary the new
buildings were he illustrated by pointing out that while M‘Neil Street
original bakery had been erected to do a trade of 700 sacks per week,
the quarter which would end on the 27th April would show, he
anticipated, an average output of 715 sacks per week. When they had
started in St James Street it took fourteen years to work up to their
full capacity of 400 sacks per week, but now they had increased their
trade by over 300 sacks a week in rather less than three years. He
hoped that the biscuit factory which they were opening that day
would prove as great a success as the bread baking factory had done,
and that many societies outside the Federation’s radius for bread
would avail themselves of its products. The United Co-operative
Baking Society was one of the grandest examples of Co-operation
which they had in the country, and it was fast becoming one of the
largest producers of bread in the West of Scotland. He referred to the
conditions under which the baking trade was carried on in the small
bakeries, quoting the Lancet as having stated that many of the
workmen had to work under conditions that were abominable, and
he invited those present to walk through the bakery and see that
everything there was clean and sweet. He pointed out that, of the 140
bakeries in Glasgow, three did as much trade as the whole of the
remainder. It was gratifying, he continued, that during the whole
twenty-one years of its existence the Baking Society had not had a
single dispute with its employees. They had always paid the best
wages and employed the best hands. Besides the usual discount, also,
the Society had paid £34,170 as dividend on purchases, and that fact
in itself spoke for the value of the Federation.
Mr Glasse then, by pulling a lever, set the machinery in motion
and declared the premises open.
 THE DINNER.
Mr M‘Culloch presided also at the dinner, at which more than 400
guests were present, including Mr Ben Jones. In his address of
welcome the chairman asked the delegates to project their minds
into the future and ask themselves what would be the magnitude of
that branch of the Society’s business which they were starting that
day when they met to celebrate the coming of age of the biscuit
factory twenty-one years hence. He also referred to the fact that all
the presidents of the Society but one were present with them.
Speeches were delivered by Messrs J. Lochhead, Ben Jones,
William Revie, Gabriel Thomson, Donald Cameron (two ex-
presidents), Mr Glasse, Mr J. Ferguson, Mr J. M‘Murran, Mr William
Barclay (another ex-president), and Mr Malcolm Neil. Mr Jones
described London, from which he had come, as “a Co-operative
desert,” while, in proposing “Retail Co-operation,” Mr Glasse said
that in the Second City of the Empire retail Co-operators were nearly
as bad as they were in the first, although during the past five years
some headway had been made in the city.
 STILL MORE EXTENSIONS.
The year 1890 was the year in which the Co-operative Congress
was last held in Glasgow. There had been an earlier Congress held in
the city—in 1876—but it passed without much note being taken of it,
and seemingly without having had much influence save on those who
were in close touch with it. It was different with the Congress of
1890, however. It gave an impetus to Co-operation in the city which
was felt by every society, and the effects of which have not died out
even yet. It was like that first strong push which overcomes the
inertia of a snowball at the top of a steep slope, and sends it rolling
down hill, ever increasing in speed and in size as it rolls on. To some
extent the ground had been prepared for the Congress by the
Wholesale Society in its erection of the buildings at Shieldhall; an
evidence of the life of Co-operation in the city which could not fail to
appeal to the imaginations of a commercial people like the
Glaswegians; and by the opening of the new bakery at M‘Neil Street,
and the big Co-operative demonstration which accompanied that
opening. Shieldhall and M‘Neil Street might be likened to the gentle
rain which watered the feeble plant of Co-operation in the city, and
the 1890 Congress to the sun, the warmth of whose rays caused it to
blossom and grow strong.
Co-operation made itself manifest in various ways during Congress
week. The Bakery was thronged with visitors; flags floated gaily from
the tops of the buildings, and a grand Co-operative procession took
place through the city, during which the lifeboat “Co-operator” was
launched on the Clyde. The directors of the Baking Society were not
slow to take advantage of all this enthusiasm for Co-operation. They
took a stall at the Congress Exhibition of Co-operative productions,
and attracted much attention by the high quality of the goods shown.
The result was that the trade of the new biscuit department received
a send off it might not otherwise have secured. Many orders were
booked during the Exhibition week, and others came flowing in for
weeks afterwards.