“A CRIMINOLOGICAL STUDY OF DEVIANT/FAULTY BEHAVIOUR OF

SLUM CHILDREN OF DHARWAD DISTRICT”

* SHIDDAPPA DODAMANI ** DR. C.F.MULIMANI
*Research scholar, Department of Criminology and Forensic science, Karnatak Science
College, Dharwad, Karnataka.
**Research supervisor, Associate professor, Department of Criminology and Forensic science,
Karnatak Science College, Dharwad, Karnataka.

ABSTRACT
This study content various types of crimes and delinquencies among children of
Dharwad slum such as violence, theft, robbery, mugging, trafficking, drug addicting, sexual
harassment etc. and how they are also used by outsiders for illegal activities. How they
involve to these crimes and delinquencies for various reasons such as social condition, poor
parenting, delinquent peer, economic insecurity, lack of education, labeling delinquent self-
image etc.
According to the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC), approved by the UN
General Assembly in November 1989, any person under the age of 18 is a child (Article 1).
Although article 12 recognizes that there are gradations of childhood and that children have
evolving capacities, 18 remains the defining limit between childhood and adulthood.
Crime can refer to a wide range of activities, which include violent personal crimes,
property crimes, organized crimes and political crimes. Van der Walt, Cronje and Smith
(1985) Juridical (legally), crime can be defined as a contravention of the law, to which a
punishment is attached and imposed by the state (Van Velzen et al. 1998:20).
Deviant is viewed as an act of antisocial behavior, which influences the quality of life
of the individual, his or her community and society at large. According to Oxford dictionary
of Sociology, delinquency literally misdeed, guilt or neglect of duty and hence in this sense
not strictly defined by law.
Children are the upcoming generation for our society. Crime and
delinquency among the urban slum children are the main hindrance for these children to
lead their prosperous future life. These are impacting other children to involve with them.
Drug addiction and drug dwelling is a major delinquency among the urban children. Slum
children get lower wages to work in shops, factories etc. But they are invited to dwell drug
with higher income. Other delinquent behaviors such as theft, robbery, mugging,
trafficking also prevails in the slum area by both slum children and outsiders.
 India is a country in which over 55% of the population comprises of children below
the age of 18 years, approximately numbering 400 million. These children represent diverse
cultures, communities, castes and socio-economic groups. Despite efforts of the Indian
government to ensure the best for the nation’s children through various policies and
programs, a large number of children are denied basic rights and suffer from abuse, neglect
and exploitation.
As per the National Human Rights Committee report 2005, going by reported
statistics, the total number of delinquent children possibly adds up to more than 50,000 a
year on an average. This is based on only those cases that are reported and recorded. On an
average, over 40, 000 children in India are reported involved in deviant act every year, of
which approximately 11,000 remain untraced. (Haque: Report on Child Rights 2005) A
more recent study in 2008 conducted by BachpanBachaoAndolan (BBA) has put the annual
figure of children in India as 90,000.
Child as defined by the Juvenile Justice Act. (JJA) 2000.includes all persons
who have not yet attained the age of 18 years, and we shall adhere by this definition for
the purpose of this study. The present study focues to find the problem of slum
children, to find the causes of deviant behavior among slum children,to find the
solution for the deviancy.
The design of the research required two forms of data source, both primary and
secondary to be obtained to gain insights into the slum children problem.
The study was conducted over two phases and incorporated both a quantitative phase
based on the analysis of secondary data sources and a qualitative phase based on semi-
structured interviews with key informants, namely, parents of slum children, police
personnel and NGOs.