Areas of Social Work Practice II (Social Defence and Correctional Services): Social Defence, its Philosophy and Changing Dimensions, Children in Need of Care and Protection and in Conflict with Law, Street and Working Children, Probation and Parole; and the Legislation and Criminal Justice System, Taught as the Law Now Stands

The syllabus names the "Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000". That Act was repealed and replaced by the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015, in force from 15 January 2016, which is the law today. It retains the two tracks of the 2000 Act. A child in need of care and protection includes a child without a home or means of subsistence, a child working in contravention of labour laws or found begging or living on the street, a child at risk of child marriage, a child who has been abused, exploited or trafficked, a child whose parent or guardian is unfit or unable to care, and an orphaned, abandoned or surrendered child; such children come before a Child Welfare Committee, which has a chairperson and four members, at least one of them a woman and one an expert on children. A child in conflict with law is a child alleged or found to have committed an offence who was under 18 on the date of the offence; such children come before a Juvenile Justice Board, consisting of a Metropolitan or Judicial Magistrate and two social workers, at least one of them a woman.

The 2015 Act classifies offences as petty (maximum punishment up to three years), serious (three to seven years) and heinous (a minimum punishment of seven years or more). Its most debated change concerns children aged 16 to 18 alleged to have committed a heinous offence: the Board conducts a preliminary assessment of the child's mental and physical capacity to commit the offence, ability to understand its consequences and the circumstances in which it was committed, and may transfer the case to a Children's Court, which may try the child as an adult; even then no child may be sentenced to death or to life imprisonment without the possibility of release. The Act states general principles, including the presumption of innocence, the best interest of the child, family responsibility, and institutionalisation as a measure of last resort; provides for observation homes, special homes, places of safety, children's homes, open shelters, fit facilities and fit persons; and makes the Central Adoption Resource Authority a statutory body. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act 2021, in force from 2022, empowered District Magistrates, including Additional District Magistrates, to issue adoption orders in place of courts and strengthened their supervision of child care institutions and child protection bodies in the district.

Street children include children who live and work on the street without families, those who work on the street and return to families at night, and those who live with families on the street. Working children are protected by the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986, as amended in 2016, which prohibits the employment of children below 14 in any occupation, with limited exceptions for helping the family after school hours and for work as artists, and prohibits adolescents aged 14 to 18 from hazardous occupations and processes; by Article 24 of the Constitution; and by the right to education under Article 21A and the RTE Act 2009. Both groups are children in need of care and protection under the Juvenile Justice Act. Social work with them uses outreach, drop-in centres and open shelters, rescue with rehabilitation rather than removal alone, family tracing and restoration, bridge education, and livelihood training for older adolescents.

Young offenders over 18 fall under the ordinary criminal law, but the Probation of Offenders Act 1958 allows courts to avoid imprisonment where it would do more harm than good. Under section 3 a court may release, after due admonition, a person found guilty of certain less serious offences; under section 4 it may release an offender on probation of good conduct, on a bond, with or without the supervision of a probation officer, having regard to the circumstances, character and antecedents of the offender; and under section 6 a court shall not sentence an offender under 21 years to imprisonment for an offence not punishable with life imprisonment unless it is satisfied, after considering a probation officer's report, that it would not be desirable to deal with the offender under section 3 or 4. Probation officers prepare pre-sentence reports, supervise probationers and help them with work, family and rehabilitation. Probation is a judicial measure that replaces imprisonment; parole is an executive measure, a conditional, temporary release of a prisoner after serving part of a sentence, for reasons such as illness or a family event, governed by state prison rules; and furlough is a periodic release granted as a matter of prison discipline and reform. After-care supports released prisoners and those leaving institutions.

The syllabus names the "Immoral Traffic prevention Act 1986". The statute was enacted as the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act 1956, following India's ratification of the UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1950); the amendment of 1986 renamed it the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act and extended it to persons of both sexes. It punishes keeping a brothel, living on the earnings of prostitution, procuring, inducing or detaining a person for prostitution, and prostitution in or near public places, and provides for special police officers, rescue and protective homes. Trafficking is also an offence under the general criminal law, now the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. The syllabus also names the "Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance Act 1986". The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act was enacted in 1985. It prohibits the production, possession, sale, transport and consumption of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances except for medical and scientific purposes, grades punishment by small and commercial quantities (since the 2001 amendment), allows immunity from prosecution to an addict charged with consuming or possessing a small quantity who volunteers for de-addiction treatment, and eased access to essential narcotic drugs for pain relief in 2014; the Narcotics Control Bureau enforces it.

The syllabus names a "Beggary Prevention Act". There is no single central law on begging; it is dealt with by state laws. The most influential is the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act 1959, which was extended to Delhi; it defined begging widely, allowed arrest without warrant and detention in certified institutions, and treated poverty as crime. In Harsh Mander v Union of India (2018), the Delhi High Court struck down the provisions of that Act that criminalised begging in Delhi, holding that punishing people for begging violates Articles 14 and 21, because begging is a symptom of poverty that the state has failed to address. Other states retain their laws, and the current approach at the national level favours rehabilitation, through the SMILE scheme of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, which includes the comprehensive rehabilitation of persons engaged in begging. The syllabus's "Prison Act" is the Prisons Act 1894, a colonial law on the management of prisons that remains in force; since prisons are a state subject, states have their own rules and manuals, the Model Prison Manual 2016 sets national standards, and the Model Prisons and Correctional Services Act 2023, prepared by the Ministry of Home Affairs, is a model law that states may adopt in place of the 1894 Act.

The criminal justice system has four components: the police, who prevent and investigate crime; the prosecution, which conducts cases on behalf of the state; the courts, which try cases and sentence; and correctional services, prisons, probation and after-care, which carry out sentences and aim at rehabilitation. Since 1 July 2024 the three main criminal laws have been replaced: the Indian Penal Code 1860 by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023, and the Indian Evidence Act 1872 by the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023. Special laws continue alongside them, including the Juvenile Justice Act, the POCSO Act 2012, the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, the NDPS Act and the Probation of Offenders Act. The system's recurring problems are delay, overcrowded prisons dominated by undertrial prisoners, custodial violence, poor legal aid for the poor, and the slow reintegration of released prisoners, each of which gives social workers a role: in legal aid and bail support, prison welfare and education, victim support, restorative justice, and after-care.