There was a time when childhood was associated with scraped knees, schoolyard fights, stolen mangoes and harmless rebellion. Much has changed today, including childhoods. Today, the number of children getting embroiled in crimes associated with knives, brutality, gang culture, sexual violence, impulsive murders and chilling videos recorded for social media validation has increased multi-fold.

The latest NCRB data, which is probably not even an accurate reflection of the number of children in conflict in law, paints a disturbing picture too. Cases registered against such juveniles rose by 11.2 percent in 2024, with over 42,000 juveniles apprehended across the country. Nearly 78 percent of them belonged to the 16 to 18 age group. 

Honestly, these children ‘in conflict with law’, are in conflict with a lot more than mere laws. And these children are who they are because of the many conflicts they have endured and live with. 

No one is born violent. Aggression is learnt, absorbed, normalised and sometimes even rewarded. A child who grows up watching violence inside the home learns that domination is power. A child repeatedly humiliated, neglected or abused often carries unprocessed rage that eventually erupts somewhere. A child deprived of affection may seek belonging in gangs. A child raised in an ecosystem of hyper-masculinity, online toxicity and glorified aggression begins to confuse cruelty with strength. 

And then there is social media, perhaps the biggest behavioural laboratory of this generation. Today’s adolescents are growing up in a digital universe where abuse is entertainment and violence is spectacle. Many children are consuming violent material long before they possess the emotional maturity to process it. They are constantly exposed to videos of beatings, murders, communal hatred, bullying and sexual degradation. In such an environment, desensitisation is inevitable. Pain loses meaning when suffering becomes scrollable content.

Equally alarming is the collapse of emotional infrastructure around children. Families are increasingly fractured, communication has weakened and many parents themselves are battling stress, anxiety, manoeuvring through life’s hurdles and challenges, and their own insecurities. Schools are becoming academic factories obsessed with marks rather than emotional wellbeing, with mental health support in most schools cosmetic or completely absent.

So where does the child take his anger?

A society that teaches boys not to cry should not be shocked when they explode. The rise in juvenile delinquency is not merely a law and order issue. It is a psychological and social emergency. Behind many children in conflict with law are stories of abandonment, violence, addiction at home, exposure to pornography, bullying, untreated trauma, substance abuse, social exclusion and emotional neglect. This does not excuse their crimes. But ignoring these realities ensures the cycle continues and the phrase ‘zero to rape and beyond’ becomes a reality for them. The acts that begin with unassuming, small acts of crime need to be stopped and checked when they still can be stopped and checked. 

None of this means accountability should disappear. Victims matter. Public safety matters. Serious offences cannot be trivialised merely because the offender is under eighteen. But punishment alone cannot solve what is fundamentally a societal breakdown.

If we continue responding only after a child commits a crime, we have already failed. The conversation must move beyond policing into prevention. Schools need trained counsellors, not token annual workshops. Parents need awareness about digital exposure, emotional communication and behavioural warning signs. Communities need safe spaces for adolescents. Substance abuse and online radicalisation among children need urgent intervention. Juvenile homes cannot become the training centres for these children to learn the intricacies of the criminal world. Children, when send to correction home, must be loved, guided and sent back to the society with minimum scars and maximum chances of reintegration in the society. Most importantly, children need adults who listen before the anger turns destructive.

Because somewhere between neglected childhoods, violent screens, fractured homes and a society addicted to rage, many children are learning that aggression is the only language that gets heard. And when a nation’s children begin communicating through violence, it is not merely a juvenile justice crisis, it is a civilisational warning.

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