1.4 Concept of Juvenile Delinquency

Juvenile delinquency = the antisocial or illegal conduct of the young — in the legal frame, the acts of a child that would be crimes if committed by an adult, plus the status offences (the age-only infractions: truancy, running away, curfew — conduct criminal only because of the doer's age — the welfare-and-justice debate's classic). The definitions' two rivers: the legal (the statute's age-and-conduct boundaries) and the sociological (the broader antisocial-behaviour stream — the delinquent as a developmental phase, not a type). The Nepali frame: the Children's Act's world — the child's offence handled by the juvenile court/bench (Unit 5) — with the modern vocabulary's shift (1.5).