A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF JUVENILE JUSTICE, EDUCATIONAL EXCLUSION, AND SYSTEMATIC MARGINALIZATION

AUTHOR – KRITIKA SONDHIYA, LAW STUDENT AT DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS, JAGRAN LAKECITY UNIVERSITY

BEST CITATION – KRITIKA SONDHIYA, A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF JUVENILE JUSTICE, EDUCATIONAL EXCLUSION, AND SYSTEMATIC MARGINALIZATION, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 5 (11) OF 2025, PG. 123-138, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344.

1. ABSTRACT

This article explores how India’s juvenile justice and educational systems interact to purposefully exclude vulnerable children through the dynamics of the school-to-prison pipeline. This term describes institutionalized practices that divert children from schools and into the criminal justice system, particularly from economically disadvantaged, Dalit, Adivasi, and Muslim communities. The research investigates how exclusionary school discipline techniques like corporal punishment, zero-tolerance discipline, expulsions, and the absence of psychosocial support disproportionately target marginalized students. These children, when they get pushed out of the school system, tend to find themselves in environments that subject them to delinquent behaviors, resulting in early criminalization. Besides, the paper also critiques structural weaknesses of India’s juvenile justice system, including overcrowded observation homes, having no legal aid, poor rehabilitation centers, and the lack of effective implementation of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015. These are perpetuating vulnerabilities of the concerned children rather than alleviating them. With a blend of policy examination, quantitative analysis by NCRB and UDISE+, and judicial  understanding, the paper underscores the system failures that criminalize instead of protecting children. It ends with a call for integrated reforms within educational and justice systems to end the pipeline and provide equitable restorative assistance to all children.