He claims that for the purpose of the law these inmates continue to be juveniles despite being adults. They can, as a consequence, assault the staff without any fear of punishment. The police is so wary of getting involved with juvenile crime, complain the officials, that they are reluctant to register a case even when a worker at the institution is beaten up.
As for the younger children in the home bullied by older boys, the officers profess helplessness. “This structure is not meant to be a children’s home. There is no way we can segregate the children from each other,” admits one.
“In fact,” he continues, “the only way we can contain a riot here is by locking all the children in.” What they do to each other when that happens is anybody’s guess.
The few welfare officers are also expected to function as counsellors and psychologists. “Leave alone a doctor, we don’t even have a vehicle to take a child to one,” says a senior official. They’re expected to use public transportation. “If in that process one of them escapes, we’re in trouble.”
Bharti Ali corroborates most of this. The counselling, recreational and educational services at the special home are provided entirely by the NGOs, she says, adding, “Almost nothing is institutionalised.” While the officials at the special home are held accountable for the children held there, they complain that the Juvenile Justice Board treats them with contempt. The views of the welfare officers, who are closest to the children, are never taken into account, either when bail is being granted or when the custody of children is being extended.
The juveniles have figured out how the system works. “All of them know how to use the laws to their advantage,” says Raj Sharma, the former juvenile offender-turned-art teacher. In most cases, they have realised that they will be let off on bail in a few months; for more severe crimes they will spend perhaps a year in a special home, where little by way of either punishment or reform will happen.
Organised gangs are taking advantage of this by recruiting children to steal and to sell drugs. Their operations are so streamlined that when these children are caught “there’s a lawyer already waiting for them at the justice board when they arrive,” says Anant Kumar Asthana, a child rights activist and lawyer.
One 14-year-old boy now at the Sewa Kutir complex was an easy target for just such a gang. His father was an alcoholic who used to beat his mother regularly. “She left us,” he says, “and has never even come to see me since.”
In 2010, in class IV, he dropped out of school after having been accused by a teacher of stealing a mobile phone. “I was angry, very angry,” he says, “I went to school and broke all the taps in the bathroom.” A group of 18 to 22-year-olds who lived in same slum befriended him. “The first time I met them they gave me a little alcohol, it felt good.”
Soon he was spending most of his time with them. From alcohol he had moved onto ‘flute’, or whitener fluids, and then to ganja. Once addiction had set in, the leaders of his gang started encouraging him to commit petty robberies, in return for which they would give him a little money and drugs. “I once gave them eight silver and gold chains that I had snatched and they gave me some drugs and Rs 100 to spend on myself.”
