Dynamics of Juvenile Delinquency and its Legal Implication: An Anthropological Study

Abstract

This anthropological study titled “Dynamics of Juvenile Delinquency and its Legal Implication: An Anthropological Study” has been conducted on the multiple dimensions of the problem juvenile delinquency and its legal issues relating to correctional process and practices. The major objectives of this study were to understand the dynamics of juvenile delinquency and its legal implication and these have been discussed through two Sections: 1) Dynamics of juvenile delinquency, 2) Legal Implication. The dynamics of juvenile delinquency has been focused on the diversified aspects of delinquent behavior: demographic dimension, socio-economic dimension, ecological dimension and finally its nature and causes has been addressed significantly. On the other hand, legal aspect has been displayed through focusing on the major legal apparatus that has been empowered by the law to address the issues legally. In this regard the Children Act 2013 has been considered as the main legal responsible entity to address the children who come into conflict with the law. In Bangladesh society, there exists centralized government and it has legitimized power or authority. Legal authority can use the power to force compliance with rules or laws. It has law enforces agency, i.e. Police department, Courts i.e. Judge, Adjudication and Detention Centers i.e. CDC to address and determine the outcome of problems of juvenile delinquency. In this society, government through formulating Children Act, 2013, engaged the above three legal apparatus to solve the problem legally. Though the Act involve others intuitions also, they do play little role. So, the current study focused on the main three organs which play the vibrant role in the implementation of government rules as well as the correctional process of the juveniles’ antisocial behavior. Therefore, to reach a fuller understanding of the legal implication related to juvenile delinquency in Bangladesh, this study has seen the legal system from the perspective of rule-governed as well as procedural flexibility and compromise, which is considered as legal anthropological study. A brief literature review of existing literatures was done carefully. Researchers examined previous writings on the subject and used that background as a basis of this study to develop a greater understanding about the causes, trends, nature and the legal aspects in dealing with the delinquent children. In this regard at first the global literatures were reviewed briefly. Then the national literature was analysis. An endeavor has been taken to include all the literatures from pre independent to recent studies on this matter. Finally, legal anthropological literatures have been reviewed. Though the legal anthropological literatures did not directly analysis the juvenile delinquency issues, its criminological and legal analysis helps a lot to uncover the anthropological nature of analysis. The literatures which have been studied thoroughly were very much relevant to the objectives of this study. The theoretical and conceptual understanding of this study was based on various explanations regarding the juvenile delinquency issues, its causation and legal aspects. In this regard, the theoretical perspective has been constructed after analyzing some prominent theories and it was done in an intensive way. Though these approaches have been dominated mainly criminological and sociological domain, it has more relevancies to analysis the causal factors of the juvenile delinquency. As the objective of this study is to analysis the dynamics of juvenile delinquency and its legal implication from anthropological perspective; theoretical construction has been made on legal anthropological theories alongside with some prominent and relevant sociological as well as criminological theories. In this regard to explain the dynamics of juvenile delinquency, Sutherland (1939), Hirschi and Gottfredson (1990), Agnew (1992), Regoli and Hewitt’s (2000), perceptions are found relevant in this study. On the other hand, correctional process has been discussed on the basis of Foucault’s (1975) thought of penitentiary panopticon. The concept of juvenile delinquency has been analyzed from different perspectives as it has been considered a multi-disciplinary field of inquiry. Deviant behavior is recognized as a socio-cultural problem and at the same time, also a legal phenomenon. So it has been seen as cultural entity and anthropologist seen deviance as disputes. So, most of the anthropologist examined the various types of disputes among various cultural settings or societies as well as their dispute management systems (Malinnowski, 1926; Hoebel, 1941; Nader, 1990). For this reason, the concept of juvenile delinquency is merged, most times, with the criminality or offence or disputes, therefore the existence of ambiguity in the use of terms such as crime, delinquency, etc. Bortner, (1988) argued that, the most widely recognized and consequential definitions of delinquency are those contained in legal statues. In Bangladesh, according to the child act, 2013, criminal responsibility of a child is the age limit between 9-18 years. The legal definition of delinquency which governed the children criminal behavior in Bangladesh society has been used as the concept of juvenile delinquency. An integrated approach was taken as the methodological basis of this study. Though it was the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, emphasis was given on qualitative approach. From data collection to in-depth analysis, techniques and tools of qualitative method was considered as the key of this study. The methods include observation, life history, case study, Key Informant Interview (KII). 5 life histories, 15 case studies and 8 KII were conducted in one-year period of field work started from May, 2015 to April, 2016. To collect the qualitative data different checklist were prepared and used in this study. However, some quantitative methods have been used when and wherever it was needed. In this regard, as a method of data collection, sample survey was used and tabular and graphic presentations were applied to supplement the qualitative analysis. In this regard an interview schedule was prepared and used. The methodology establishes the research’s epistemological and ontological positions, as well as justified the chosen methods. When the field activities were carried on a total number of 387 accused juvenile delinquents were kept in Tongi, Gagipur, CDC for different cases. Among them 188 juveniles were stayed over three months and this number of juveniles constituted the sampling frame. In Konabari, Gagipur, CDC the female accused delinquents were only 8. By using the statistical formula, the sample size was determined as 161 and it was convenient for an individual study. The result indicated that now-a-days juveniles are involved in criminal activities to a large extent. They committed violent and serious crime also. Though there exist numerical difference between boys and girls; severity does not differ. Both male and female juvenile involve heinous crime like murder, abductions, trafficking, theft, rape etc. Age is also an important indicator to make variation in delinquency. It has been revealed from this study that a particular age group is more prone to commit both serious and non-serious crime. The study, instead, have revealed the fundamental cause of juvenile delinquency in Bangladesh The fundamental basic and undisputed cause of juvenile delinquency is poverty; parents as well as their intrinsic needs compelled them to engage illegal activities. The next cause has been found to be poor if not poorest parental care of the destitute children; no affection, no care, no supervision, inadequate mental and material support. Next, disrupted family environment, absence of either parent, particularly mother, quarrelsome and analphabetic family background is found to be major cause. The next fundamental cause is found to be the peer pressure; peer or neighborhood instigation. The other fundamental causes of juvenile delinquency are revengeful attitude, favorable environment, land dispute, objectification of women and so on. It has been found that a different set of causes is responsible for each individual case. From this study, it is clear that the legal process and practices that is applied to deal with the juvenile delinquents has been largely lacks the real procedure. The fair treatment of juvenile, from arrest to release is an important issue to be considered by the three organs which are responsible in addressing the juvenile delinquency. Both the qualitative and quantitative data indicates that police administrations are the worst section that severely violated the legal process. In the court the authorities do little care about the legal and child right aspect of juveniles. CDC as the correctional institutes lack manpower, budget allocation, and infrastructure and so on. Moreover, the existing prison culture within CDCs demonstrated the dual administrations are simultaneously going on in the CDC. The CDCs authorities are the legal apparatus to address the juveniles; on the other hand, the so called baro vai is the reality who exercises power over the junior inmates in the name of discipline within the CDC. Therefore, the legal process and practices that are going on in our juvenile justice system are far from the directives of law. It has been revealed that the Police administration lacks trainings, motivations skills and infrastructure to deal with the children, the court personnel lack sincerity to establish the legal procedure and finally the correctional centers lack all kinds of facilities for correctional activities. All together these lacks make the reintegration of the juvenile offenders in the society is almost impractical. So, a ‘humanistic and holistic’ approach is needed to address the juvenile delinquency in Bangladesh.