What is the average age of the female criminals in India?

What is the average age of the female criminals in India?

In terms of age, according to all India figures, taking the female offenders convicted for crimes under the IPC and under the Local and Special Laws together (1998), it may be said that 1.5 per cent offenders are below 18 years of age, a little less than half (46.5%) belong to 18-30 years age group, a little more than two-fifths (43.7%) belong to 30-50 years age group, and a little less than one-tenth (8.3%) are more than 50 years age (Crime in India, 1998: 299-300).

My study showed that (out of 325 offenders) 5.7 per cent female offenders were very young (below 16 years of age), 52.8 per cent were young (16-30 years of age), and 35.8 per cent were middle-aged (30-50 years of age), and 5.7 per cent were old (above 50 years of age).

The mean age at the commitment of crime was 28.7 years and median was 26.1 years. Against this, the mean age at the beginning of the marital life of these offenders was 17.4 years.

This is the age at which girls is neither chronologically nor mentally mature and is biologically and socially incapable of understanding and performing the marital and other roles in the family.

This clearly shows that since a large number of female offenders are young at the time of committing crimes, the interpersonal relations in the family after marriage create adjustment problems for women and sometimes force them to indulge in deviant behaviour.