New statistics indicate an increase in crime committed by children and adolescents. But experts reject proposals to lower the age of criminal responsibility in the country. The number of crimes committed by minors in Germany increased by a third in 2022, compared to the previous year, according to statistics released on Thursday (30/03) by the Federal Department of Criminal Investigation (BKA).
In 2022, 5.6 million crimes were recorded in Germany, 11.5% more than in 2021. The data also show an overall increase in crime of 3.5% compared to 2019, the last year before the restrictions due to covid-19.
Compared to 2021, the number of suspects also increased by 10.7% to just over 2 million. Suspects under the age of 14 rose to 93,095, an increase of 35.5% over the previous year. Some 189,149 suspects were between the ages of 14 and 18 – in 2019 that figure was 177,082.
The most frequent crime committed by children and young people is theft, followed by robbery, property damage and drug-related offences.
Holger Münch, president of the BKA, points out that the comparison of the statistics for 2022 with those of the previous two years has relative significance, for the effects of the pandemic: “Overall, last year’s crime level was comparable to that of the year before the 2019 crisis.”
Return of the old debate
The statistics prompted officials in the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg to write a letter to the federal government asking for a review of the age of criminal responsibility.
Rainer Wendt, head of the German police union (DPolG), also called for this age limit to be lowered: “It’s not about punishing children or sending them to prison, it’s about influencing their behavior, and criminal procedures are very effective way to do that.”
Under German law, juvenile criminal responsibility begins at the age of 14, and before then young people cannot be prosecuted for committing crimes.
In some other countries, the age of criminal responsibility is lower. In Brazil it is 12 years old (while the legal age is 18). In England and Wales it is ten years, while in France children can be sentenced to 13.
The debate has been reignited by the murder of 12-year-old Luise F. from the city of Freudenberg in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia on March 11, 2023. Two girls aged 12 and 13 are suspected of carrying out the attack and she allegedly confessed the crime. The autopsy revealed several stab wounds and the victim bled to death.
°It’s not serious and it’s not very useful”
However, most psychologists, social workers and criminals are against lowering the age of criminal responsibility. “I think that [o debate] it is completely inappropriate, not serious and unnecessary,” says Sibylle Winter, a child psychiatrist and senior consultant at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, adding that the serious acts of violence are “absolutely isolated incidents”.
Regarding the new statistics, Winter urges caution in spotting a general trend toward more violence among children. In 2015, 79,371 crimes were committed by children under the age of 14. That number has steadily declined through 2021, when it stood at 68,725. The number of crimes committed by 14- to 18-year-olds has also decreased, from 218,025 in 2015 to 154,889 in 2021.
Torsten Verrel, director of the criminology department at the University of Bonn, is also against lowering the age of criminal responsibility. He says the debate always reignites after extreme, even if isolated, cases of juvenile delinquency.
“There’s a good American saying that tough cases make bad law,” Verrel says, adding that the idea that lowering the age of criminal responsibility would be an effective deterrent for children is just naïve.
“Juvenile delinquency often takes the form of shoplifting and property damage, both of which are covered by the criminal law. And nobody wants that. Fortunately, our political system is stable and sensitive enough to realize that this is a very demanding request. Approach populist which, in practice, would lead to enormous problems”.
md/av (DPA, DW)
Source: Terra
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