fact finder
Status: 03/17/2023 2:38 p.m
After the crime near Freudenberg, the focus is on crimes committed by children under the age of 14. While the number has stagnated at a low level for years, some federal states are now recording a sharp increase in suspects.
“In recent years we have seen an increase in crimes by young people and children – often under the age of 14,” tweeted North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst after the crime near Freudenberg, in which two children aged twelve and 13 are believed to have been killed years stabbed a 12 year old should have. However, nationwide figures for 2022 that could support these statements are not yet available. These will not be published by the Federal Criminal Police Office until the end of March.
Pascal Siggelkow
tagesschau.de
A request from ARD fact finder to all interior ministries of the federal states, however, shows that in many federal states the number of suspects under the age of 14 has actually risen sharply in the past year. However, this is the number of suspects and therefore not necessarily the actual perpetrators.
Increase in child suspects in NRW
The numbers to which Wüst refers come from the answer to a small request from the AfD, which ARD fact findingr is present. According to the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior, there were 20,948 suspected children under the age of 14 in 2022. In 2021 there were 14,851 – an increase of 41 percent.
The numbers fluctuated between 2015 and 2021, which does not indicate a general increase. That’s how it was according to the North Rhine-Westphalian State Criminal Police Office in 2012 there were still 16,609 suspected children under the age of 14, while the lowest number was recorded in 2020 with 13,437. The following year there was a slight increase again.
However, the year 2020 was special due to the corona pandemic, says Thomas Bliesener, Director of the Lower Saxony Criminological Research Institute (KFN). “There was a restriction on life in public space. Even children stayed at home. Of course, that has to be taken into account.” As a result, the figures for 2020 were relatively lower compared to the year before and after. This explains the increase in child suspects from 2020 to 2021, but not the significant increase to 2022.
Increase also in other federal states
Because in other federal states there was also a particularly high increase in 2022 compared to the previous year, as the query of all federal states of the ARD fact finder shows. Accordingly, the numbers have increased in all federal states in which the data are already available. Similar to North Rhine-Westphalia, increases of around 40 percent have also been recorded in Bavaria and Hesse. Hamburg (+36.87) and Rhineland-Palatinate (+32.02) are just below. In Schleswig-Holstein (+21.98) and Bremen (+15.59) the numbers have increased less significantly.
Although the nationwide figures are only available in the form of police statistics at the end of March, the figures available for the seven federal states already suggest a Germany-wide increase in suspected children in 2022 – albeit to different extents in each federal state. Because even when comparing the last ten years, the figures for 2022 are at their highest in some federal states.
peak in the late 1990s
Looking even further back, the numbers were significantly higher compared to today. Nationwide, the highest number was recorded in 1998 with 152,774 child suspects and remained at more than 100,000 until 2008. Since then, the numbers have been falling steadily with small fluctuations and stood at 68,724 in 2021 – a decrease of more than half compared to 1998.
Bliesener says that these longer courses have to be taken into account with the current increase. “We criminologists always look at the longer periods of time. Especially with the more serious crimes, where the number is relatively low, individual events can already have a major impact.” It is not yet possible to explain why there will be such a high increase in some federal states in 2022.
Nationwide numbers have stagnated recently
According to police crime statistics, a total of 68,725 children under the age of 14 were registered as suspects in Germany in 2021. However, the vast majority of these are not acts of violence: there were 14,493 suspects in connection with a bodily harm offence. Of these, 3613 are assigned to dangerous and serious bodily harm and twelve cases involve bodily harm resulting in death.
“For several years there has been stagnation at a low level,” says Bliesener from the KFN. Only in 2016 was there a slightly larger increase, because there were significantly more children of that age in a short time due to migration, says Bliesener. Most crimes committed by children are property crimes, such as shoplifting.
Although there was a slight overall decrease in physical injuries compared to the first decade of the 21st century, the numbers fluctuate from year to year: from 2007 to 2011 they were constantly higher than 18,000, after which the threshold was only exceeded once more . In 2021, the figure was 14,493.
Overall, the so-called crimes against life are significantly fewer – including murder, manslaughter but also abortions: 19 suspected children under the age of 14 were recorded here in 2021. For comparison: According to the Federal Statistical Office, around 8.5 million children under the age of 14 lived in Germany this year. Overall, the values are so low that even slight changes can lead to a large percentage change.
Act “very, very unusual”
In general, such extreme acts as those near Freudenberg are considered rare exceptions by experts. The fact that girls kill in childhood is “very, very unusual,” said criminal psychologist Rudolf Egg WDR. In his career he had never had such a case, according to the long-standing director of the Central Criminological Office in Wiesbaden.
From Bliesener’s point of view, the question of why children commit such serious crimes in the first place is not so easy to answer. Sometimes it happens that a child is playing with a gun and then a shot goes off. “But we also have insights into the fact that sometimes a completely misunderstood understanding of the effects of weapons also contributes to the crime.” For example, there was a lack of anatomical knowledge to know what the consequences could be if, for example, a knife was poked into the abdomen or throat.
In addition, children only have a very abstract idea of death – as if, for example, it was just a sleep from which you might wake up again. “Many are not even aware of the scope,” says Bliesener. In addition, children often experience provocations or exposure more dramatically than adults and can therefore react more extreme. “Young people are often not aware that this situation will pass again.”
Experts against prison sentences for children
In the discussion about reducing the age of criminal responsibility, the experts are more in favor of rehabilitation measures. “I think the legislature chose this age limit with good reason,” says Bliesener. He is convinced that there are much cheaper, better and more appropriate measures in addition to the prison system. It is almost impossible for children to develop positively in prison.
Criminal psychologist Egg sees it that way too. The confessing girls are at the beginning of their lives. “You don’t have to block their entire lives now,” he said. “Even if they have carried a very heavy moral guilt on themselves.” At a point in time that has yet to be determined, the girls will have to be shaken. In the case of children, the focus is not on punishment, but on education and development. “But that doesn’t mean that the act will remain without consequences. Of course, it’s not possible to just go back to business as usual,” said Egg. “That must have consequences.”
The youth welfare offices are now responsible. “For example, there is the possibility that the families will receive childcare. You can also argue about custody,” said Egg. The act also means a massive cut for the small community. You will have to ask yourself whether the girls can continue to go to the same class.