By IANS,
New Delhi : More and more children across India are taking to committing crimes with the incidence of juvenile crime recording an increase each year. In 2007, the juvenile crimes increased by 8.4 percent.
The number of juvenile crimes in 2007 increased by 8.4 percent over 2006 with 22,865 crimes by juveniles registered during 2007, up from 21,088 in 2006.
The largest number of crimes by juveniles — 7,498 — were theft followed by 4,832 for hurts, 3,744 for burglary and 2,231 for riots.
What is worrying more is that the share of crimes committed by juveniles to total crimes reported in the country has also increased in last three years.
“The crimes committed by minors was 1.7 percent of total crime in the country in 2005. It increased to 1.9 and 2.0 percent in 2006 and 2007, respectively,” according to the “Crime in 2007” report of the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).
The rate of minors involved in crimes like molestation and sexual harassment recorded a downfall but another worrying fact was that more children were involved in arson and riots.
“The highest increase in the incidence of juvenile crimes was observed under criminal breach of trust that recorded a jump of 166 percent followed by arson and riots that increased by 75 percent and 45 percent respectively,” the report said.
A total of 34,527 juveniles were apprehended during 2007 out of which 32,671 were boys and 1,856 were girls.
“The highest number of juveniles apprehended in 2007 — 18,015 — was in the age group of 16-18 years, which was 16.3 percent higher compared to 2006,” the report said.
Madhya Pradesh reported the highest 5,089 number of crimes by juveniles in the country followed by 4,499 in Maharashtra and 1,864 in Gujarat.
Analysing the economic background of these juveniles, the report found that maximum around 68.4 percent belonged to poor families whose annual income was below Rs.25,000.