Children in conflict with the law

Children are one of the most vulnerable social groups. Things are even more complicated with children who, for one reason or another, are in contact with the law: children who have committed a crime; children committing the so-called "status offenses", which include acts that would be criminal in nature if committed by adults; child victims and child witnesses.

Juvenile delinquency is nothing more than a combination of negative, social and legal phenomena, namely antisocial and unlawful acts committed by persons under the age of eighteen.

Kazakhstan established special educational facilities for children and adolescents who are in conflict with the law and who do not want to study at school, where social and educational work aimed at prevention of crime and asocial lifestyle is carried-out. Special facilities for children with deviant behavior are educational institutions designed for children who systematically commit administrative offenses, maliciously evade education, systematically run away from their families, and commit other antisocial acts for a period of a month to a year.

Working with difficult children is one of the main components of social work in many countries. The significance of the services provided by special education facilities has necessitated the need for their reforming and introduction of more effective ways to support children who came into contact with the law.

According to UNICEF studies, the feasibility of a program to provide social, legal and psychological support to those minors who were undergone to legal proceedings, from a social point of view is to enable child recovery, due to which they stay within the family and have no difficulty returning to society. From a legal point of view, children completing alternative programs have a relapse rate of less than one percent, while children who graduate from special schools and colonies repeat offenses in 90 percent of cases.