Juvenile Justice System in Pakistan: A Critical Appraisal

Abstract

This research delineates the concept of Juvenile Delinquency and unfurls the rudimentary underpinnings, requisites and contours of the Juvenile Justice System in Pakistan. In the second half of 20th century, the concern for protection of best interest of juveniles has attracted attention under international conventions and national legislation, whose overarching and overriding aim is to deal and manage this crucial issue of juvenile delinquency while keeping in view the ‘best interests of the child’ and ‘safeguard of their fundamental rights’. However, unfortunately some basic shortcomings persist in the overall Criminal Justice System of Pakistan to which Juvenile Justice System is a part, inter alia, overcrowding and inhuman conditions of detention centers, incapacitated staff of the prisons, callousness, abuse and exploitation at the hands of police, pathetic prosecution system and an overwhelmed judicial system whose eventualities culminate in problems for pre-trial offenders awaiting their trials, a fragile probation and parole system and lack of other diversionary measures to detention that can help reduce a great chunk of prisoners from already brimmed prisons. Juvenile Justice System particularly focuses upon not bringing the juvenile offenders encounter formal Criminal Justice System rather puts emphasis on alternate measures for the rehabilitation, re-socialization, and re-integration of the juveniles into the society. This research elaborately seeks to highlight the issues surrounding Juvenile Justice System in Pakistan and puts forward certain recommendations for the improvement of the said System with the aim of assisting policy and law makers to establish practicable strategies, translating Juvenile Justice System ‘on paper’ to ‘in practice’. For conduct of research doctrinal method has been employed with analytical and critical approach.