The Socio-economic Profile of Children in Conflict with the Law

Abstract

Children engaged in offences tend to share certain common features: they are victims of multiple deprivations; most come from poor or dysfunctional families and had parents with lower levels of education. This does not mean, however, that deviant behaviour is the monopoly of children from lower-income groups. Evidence shows that children from middle- and high-income families also commit offences, but these tend to remain hidden in the data as most such cases are settled before they come to court. The law appears to be harshest, therefore, to those who are the most socially and politically vulnerable. Nevertheless, poverty cannot be considered as the root cause of offences by children as there are millions of poor children who are law-abiding. It is best regarded as one among many risk factors. The focus of this chapter is to conduct a critical analysis of the profile of children in conflict with law and to find a correlation between offences and socio-economic variables.