Question

An essay on the topic " Youth and Crime ".

Answer 1

With the emergence of these changes, it is imperative to study why the youth deviate from legal and social norms, to identify the type of young people who indulge in criminal behaviour, and, above all, to determine whether or not deviant youth can be resocialised.

But before analyzing these issues, it would be profitable to understand the concept of youth. Who are the youth? Is the concept of 'youth' age-linked or age-graded?

A person below-12 year of age is called a child, one between 12 and 18 years is regarded as an adolescent, one between 18 and 30 years is viewed as a young person, and one between 30 and 50 years is described as a middle-aged person.

Before the enactment of the Juvenile Justice Act on December 1, 1986, a child between 7 and 18 or 21 years of age (age prescribed differently in the Children Acts in ' different states) violating the law was considered a juvenile delinquent.

However, the Juvenile Justice Act, 1986 defined a 'juvenile' as "a male below 16 years of age and a female below 18 years of age". For the purposes of analysing the problem of 'youth crime', a person who is between 16 and 25 years, i.e., one who is in his late adolescence and early adulthood, and one who has still a 'dependency status', has been regarded as 'youth'.

In present-day India, a person normally marries in the age group of 20-25 years. After marriage, his responsibilities and experiences with different persons gradually make him more prudent, more mature, and more responsible.

Before marriage, a person is less mature socially and is more dependent on others. We have, therefore, termed the age-group of 16-25 years as 'youth'.

In the total population (1991 figures) of our country, 12.85 per cent persons belong to the age-group of 0-4 years, 23.15 per cent to 5-14 years, 19.17 per cent to 15-24 years, 38.33 per cent to 25-59 years, and 6.50 per cent to 60 plus years, (see, India: 1992, 19).

If we take only male population of 439.2 million (out of total population of 846.3 million or 51.9%) in 1991, 25.8 per cent belong to 0-9 age group, 11.9 per cent to 10-14 age group, 9.9 per cent to 15-19 age group, 8.6 per cent to 20-24 age group, 7.8 per cent to 25-29 age group and 36 per cent are above 30 years.

Thus, only 18.5 per cent males (of 15-24 years) are youth. Thus, there are nearly 16 million persons in India in the age-group of 16-25 years, or it may be said that nearly one-fifth of the country's population constitutes the 'youth'.