Over 9,600 children ‘wrongly’ locked up in adult jails in India in 6 years: RTI study

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prisons in India over a period of six years, a study by legal justice non-profit iProbono, has found. The study titled “Incarceration of Children In Prisons in India" relies on data obtained through 124 Right to Information (RTI) applications filed between April 2022 and March 2023 across 28 states and two union territories.

Also Read: ‘Gujarat’s prison has better education than.…’: Netizens react after prisoners in Surat jail pass GSEB 12th exam “The data we received indicates that at least 9,681 children were wrongly incarcerated in adult prisons across the country between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2021," reads the report launched by two children in conflict with the law (CCLs) who lost crucial years of their lives lodged in prisons at New Delhi's India Islamic Cultural Center on May 11. "For six years, i thought the jail would be the end of my life.

I lost my childhood," said one of the children on the occasion. Justice S Ravindra Bhat, former Supreme Court judge and former chairperson of the Supreme Court Juvenile Justice Committee, delivered the keynote address on the occasion.

Gitanjali Prasad, lead author of the report and advisor to iProbono, presented the context to and main findings of the study. A press statement issued by iProbono said that the study examines the effective implementation of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJ Act) which legally mandates that a child alleged to have committed an offence, or found guilty of an offence, is to be placed in an appropriate juvenile home - such as an observation home, special home, or a place of safety - and not an adult prison.