CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF JUVENILE JUSTICE ACT 2015

Introduction
The country of India includes several states and some of these states have their own “Children’s
Acts.” The main goals of these “Children’s Acts” are: (1) to provide for a machinery to effectuate the
existing laws; (2) to provide for the protection of neglected and destitute children and prevent them
from taking to deviant behaviour; and (3) to make some treatment and rehabilitation provisions in
respect to children who are either victimized or uncontrollable2.
The basic assumptions underlying the Indian juvenile justice system are: (1) the need to segregate
juveniles and adult offenders to aid crime prevention efforts, and treatment and correctional policies;
(2) the belief that juvenile deviance is the result of “lapses” in society, and therefore, deviance should
be approached in social defence terms, rather than penal terms; and (3) the belief that the juvenile
justice system can match system services with specific needs of identifiable juvenile subgroups.
The juveniles who are referred to the juvenile justice system are classified into two basic categories:
offenders and non-offenders. Offenders are those who have broken the law, while non-offenders come
to the attention of the system because they are socially handicapped or uncontrollable or because they
have been victimized.34.