Juvenile Delinquency and Drug Abuse: Causes, Consequences and Legal Responses

The problem of juvenile delinquency and drug abuse is one of the most intractable issues to face modern criminal justice systems, and is on the cusp of meeting four disciplines: criminology, adolescent psychology, public health, and child rights jurisprudence. This paper will examine the family, socioeconomic, psychological, and environmental factors that may put youth at risk for substance abuse and delinquent behaviour; it will also conduct a doctrinal review of the causal linkage problem by arguing that substance abuse causes delinquent behaviour in youth. It then compares and conceptually studies the response legal regimes under international treaties, namely the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Beijing Rules, and examines the multi-dimensional effects of this nexus on individuals, families, and society. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 are two pieces of Indian domestic legislation that are relevant to the Riyadh Guidelines. Juvenile justice in India has been shaped by a concept of reform and rehabilitation, as reviewed in this article. It also compares and contrasts the juvenile justice systems in the United Kingdom and the United States. In addition, the article compares and contrasts juvenile justice systems in the United Kingdom and the United States, and it examines court pronouncements that have impacted the reformative and rehabilitative ethos of juvenile justice administration in India. It arrives at a conclusion that even if the statutory structure is centered on rehabilitation and not punishment, it is not helped by a lack of rehabilitative infrastructure, there is also a lack of coordination between the juvenile justice sector and the other sectors and sectors have not given proper attention to drug-crime nexus but it recommends reforms in juvenile justice which will focus on early intervention, family-centred rehabilitation and provision of specialised rehabilitative services.