-The Hindu When a death sentence is given to satisfy the "collective conscience of the community," it raises troubling questions about the fairness of the trial The verdict of death for the bestial gang rape in Delhi last December is based on Supreme Court judgments, which stipulate that capital punishment will be imposed in "the rarest of rare" cases, where the community's "collective conscience is so shocked that it will expect the...

-The Hindu Equating juveniles with adult criminals is neither scientifically correct nor normatively defensible The August 31 verdict of the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) in the Delhi gang rape case, handing down a bare three-year custodial sentence to the juvenile member, has generated a fresh round of debate on the legality and desirability of juvenile justice itself: why should juveniles above 16 indulging in violent crimes not be treated as adult criminals?...

-The Hindustan Times After months of debate on whether juveniles accused of heinous crimes like rape and murder should be tried as adults, the government, it seems, has finally come around to the view that the issue of graded punishment should be considered. According to news reports, the women and child development ministry, after discussions, has agreed to the view that juveniles who are between 16-18 years committing heinous crimes should...

-The Hindu Not only is the death penalty barbaric and immoral and its deterrent effect unproven, it also contradicts the core objectives of the criminal justice system Advocating for the abolition of the death penalty in the immediate aftermath of the sentencing in the Delhi rape case may appear morally dubious. What rights do people guilty of so heinous a crime lay claim to, and what do they deserve but death, you...

-The Hindu     Only the ‘principal offence' in an FIR gets into NCRB data The National Crime Records Bureau, India's official source of crime data, is systematically undercounting virtually every crime in India on account of a statistical shortcoming, The Hindu has learnt. The December 16 gang rape, which prompted much examination of data on sexual assault in the country, will not even figure in NCRB data on rape owing to this statistical flaw. The...