The Journal of Animal & Plant Sciences 19(2): 2009, Pages: 101-103 ISSN: 1018-7081 101 A STUDY OF JUVENILE CRIMES IN BORSTAL JAIL, FAISALABAD, PAKISTAN A. Shamim, Z. Batool, M. I. Zafar and N. Hashmi * Department of Rural Sociology, University of Agriculture Faisalabad Pakistan. * Department of Statistics, G.C .University Faisalabad. ABSTRACT Juvenile crimes is a popular issue of social research. Juvenile crimes slow down the development of a society. The present research aimed at exploring the socio-economic factors of juvenile crime. A sample of 90 juveniles was selected in Borstal Jail Faisalabad through random sampling technique. Study found that majority of the respondents was illiterate and belonged to the age group 16-18 years. Most of them belonged to low income group. This study concluded that poverty and low economic status promotes the rate of juvenile crimes. Key words: Juvenile crimes, socio-economic factors, attitude towards crime. INTRODUCTION Crimes remained always a major problem for society. Crimes violate sacred customs, laws and values. Crimes interrupt the smooth operation of the social and political orders. The cited factors responsible for juvenile delinquency are: broken home, delinquent community environment, bad company of peer/school group, slums with criminal neighborhood, poverty, and unemployment. The rising trend of big crimes and juvenile delinquency amongst youth leads them to arrest by police (Aoulakh, 1999). Children from the poor and working class backgrounds are much more likely to engage in delinquent behavior. Juvenile reforms such as Child-Saving Movement focused their attentions on urban poor and working-class youths. The experts argued that class background was a significant explanatory variable for delinquent propensities. However, to some resources, delinquency is also quite common among middle class youth. The land dispute, honor killing inferiority complex, large family size, income disparity and friend’s motivation are the main determinants of the juvenile heinous crime (Mahmood and Cheema, 2004). It has been shown that children exposed to risk factors such as behavioral problems and family dysfunction, follow a well described and documented path beginning with behavioral manifestations and reactions such as defiance of adults, lack of school readiness and aggression towards peers. This leads to negative short term outcomes including truancy, peer and teacher rejection, low academic achievements, and early involvement in drugs and alcohol. These factors lead to causes school failure and eventual dropout, leading to negative and destructive attitudes such as delinquency, adult criminality and violence (Robert, 2002). The present study targeted to identify the factors of juvenile crimes within the socio-economic framework of the society and to present policy measure to reduce the prevalence of juvenile crimes. MATERIALS AND METHODS Borstal Jail Faisalabad was selected as universe for this study. A list of prisoner juvenile delinquents were got from the jail authority. A sample of 90 out of 162 juvenile delinquents was selected randomly. The data was collected with the help of a well designed interview schedule. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The affect of various independent variables is given as under: Majority of respondents (70 percent) belong to the age group 16-18 years, 21.1 percent of respondents were in the age of 13-15 years and remaining 8.9 percent of the respondents were in the age of 10-12 years. The study indicates that most of them belonged to age 16-18 years age group. David et al., (1986) reported that children were involving in crimes, at the younger ages (15–18). Study found that 48.9 percent of respondents were illiterate, 16.7 percent of respondents got primary education, 17.8 percent of respondents had middle level of education. Only 16.7 percent of respondents got education up to metric or above. The table shows that 37.8 percent of respondents were students, 23.3 percent of respondents were laborer and 10.0 percent do their own business while 12.2 percent responds were private job holders and 10.0 percent were agriculturists. Only 1 respondent were a gang member and 5.6 percent of respondents were jobless. Low income is a major determinant of respondent’s criminal behavior (Donnermeyer, 1982). The above table shows that 24.4 percent of the respondents had family monthly income between the range of 2500 to 5000, 13.3 percent had