A study of health status of juvenile delinquents

Background: A Juvenile is a person or child who has not completed the age of 18 years. A Juvenile delinquent is a child who has not attained 18 years of age and who committed an offence under existing law. Juvenile delinquency is a behavior disorder of deviant adults. Its spectrum extends from misbehavior to assault and includes robbery and heinous crimes. Aim: To study the health, nutrition status, socio-demographic profile and risk factors of the juvenile delinquents. Materials and methods: The present study was a cross sectional study undertake in government observation home for boys to study the health status of 175 juvenile delinquents in 8 months period of time. Results: Higher Age Group Delinquents are having more habits which were statistically significant when compared with other age group delinquents. The parents of the majority of the delinquents were illiterates and working as a daily laborers and belong to low socio economic group. The findings of the study proves that the risk factors for juvenile delinquency were lack of parental supervision, parental negligence, single parent, illiteracy, poverty, ignorance, child abuse, low socio economic status, urbanization of the society and life pattern, lack of cultural influence, non-exposure of juveniles to good recreational facilities and hobbies. In Nuclear Families, habits in delinquents are at higher side which is statistically Significant when compared with Delinquents who lived in other type of families. The majority of the juveniles have behavioral disorders like smoking, drinking alcohol, absconding and doing theft. Most of the juvenile delinquents are healthy and very few of them are anemic. Conclusions: Well-trained Health Workers, Social Workers, Psychologists, Nutritionists, Artists, Sportsman, Teachers are of immense importance and much needed for the task of juvenile correction and development. Parents must be given proper counselling to avoid repetition of the juveniles.