The State Women and Child Development (WCD) department’s flagship initiative to provide psycho-social care to children in conflict with law and aid their community-based rehabilitation is paying dividends — it has brought down reoffending rates among juveniles to less than 3.8%.
A study in 2015 found 25% recidivism, that is repeat offending, among children in conflict with law in the State, which led to the piloting of the programme ‘Kaval’ with the support of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru. Another assessment by NIMHANS put the rate of reoffending at 13.92%, but the figures were still high warranting a serious intervention to reduce reoffending rates among children.
Kaval is innovative for it incorporates government and non-governmental organisation partnership to provide multi-stakeholder support to children — counselling, school/educational support, mental health, family and community support, skill training, and de-addiction.
Joint approach
This inter-sectoral approach brings together systems such as juvenile justice board, police, district child protection units, school counsellors and authorities, family members, and representatives of local bodies, among others, for providing continual support to children who have committed offences so as to aid their reintegration into society rather than being institutionalised.
The programme’s success can be gauged from the fact that the rate of recidivism among children in the State has remained below 4% for some years now — the least was 3.75% in 2018-19. Encouraged by the results, the State recently made a presentation on Kaval at a consultative meet on child protection organised by the Supreme Court committee on juvenile justice and advocated for its emulation elsewhere in the country.
According to Kaval data, 371 children are no longer part of the programme since they have been successfully reintegrated into society.
Beneficiaries
Of the 2,119 current Kaval beneficiaries, 1,859 were first-time offenders and 260 were repeat offenders. After a year of continuous intervention, only 90 committed another offence; as many as 2,029 did not relapse.
The number of first-time offenders (88.2%) is much the same as compared to that in 2020, show figures.
Following interventions, 395 children resumed their education. A total of 268 joined vocational training, 120 completed it and 90 secured placements. As many as 676 children were also employed in other jobs.
While 180 children sought de-addiction treatment, 71 completed it with follow-ups.
The programme also throws up other interesting figures. While the number of children in conflict with law under Kaval has been increasing, so too has been the number of girls among them.
Up to 40% of the children in conflict with law were working and 37% of them were students. In short, 77% of them were engaged in some activity but still committing offences. A majority of them were from below-the-poverty line families. Those from nuclear families (60.7%) committed maximum number of crime, while 20.5% belonged to single-parent families.
Theft (31.6%), sexual offences (26.4%), and hurt (20.3%) were the most common offences. The number of children involved in narcotics/substance abuse cases too was going up, Kaval programme coordinator Sreenesh S. Anil said.
