“Only tiny proportion of reality”: Over 9,600 children imprisoned in adult jails in 6 years reveals a RTI study.
Groundxero | May 17, 2024
A recent right-to-information-based report, titled Incarceration of Children in Prisons in India, has found at least 9,681 children were wrongly incarcerated in adult prisons in between 1st January, 2016, to 31st December, 2021.
The report was released on 11th May in Delhi by iProbono – a legal justice non-governmental organisation that focuses on child rights. The study is based on 474 replies obtained through the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI) filed from 28 states and two Union territories.
As per the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJ Act), a child alleged to have committed an offence or found guilty of an offence is to be placed in an appropriate juvenile home– such as an observation home, special home or a place of safety– not an adult prison.
The report finds that an average of just over 1,600 children every year are transferred out of prisons after being confirmed to be below 18 years old at the time of committing the offence.
The actual number could be much higher and the data is only a “tiny proportion of the reality” as only 50% of the RTI got a response and two states – Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (with the 3rd and 6th highest prison populations, respectively, based on 2022 data), didn’t respond to RTI queries, according to the report.
“Time after time, there have been observations by courts, juvenile justice lawyers who are part of civil society, and by wrongly incarcerated CCLs themselves, that cite wrongful police action as a critical reason for protection of children under the JJ Act, 2015 not being realised,” concludes the report.
The study urges building state accountability and compensation for incarceration and in cases where deliberate misrepresentation is revealed on the part of officials, disciplinary action should be sought against them.