Paper Title
Retributive or Restorative Justice for Juveniles in India

Abstract
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. This perhaps was the reason for public uproar after the judgement given in Delhi‟s Nirbhaya case where the State was accused of going soft on one of the juvenile offender. So „The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act,2015‟ was passed in India. Children committing heinous offences cannot be treated with kid gloves. But putting them in adult prisons would turn them into hard core criminals and repeat offenders which has been the experience in the West. As the popular saying goes “Old enough to do the crime, young enough to do the time”. When juveniles hurt, terrorize and terrify innocent people, then why do they bleat about being incarcerated? If they do the crime, they must do the time. On the contrary, child activists consider „The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act,2015‟ to be arbitrary. They believe that the Act has undone all the good laws of the past and is based on the principles of retribution and vengeance. Juveniles need bread, not barriers to their development. They need sympathy of our society and not the heavy hand of the law. Restorative justice is a welcome idea. What is needed is a change of mindset, willingness to bring victims to the forefront of criminal proceedings and to acknowledge that restoring relationships and healing the harm are important elements of the criminal justice system. So our job is not merely to judge, our job is to lift the fallen, to restore the broken and to heal the hurting. The paper focuses on the types and causes of juvenile crimes, the juvenile justice system in India and the measures to prevent juvenile delinquency Keywords - Crime, Delinquency, Juvenile, Retributive, Vengeance