Due to the surge in underage offenders, there have been calls to lower the age of criminal responsibility. Michael Lindner, State Council for Child and Youth Welfare (Upper Austria), during a background discussion on Thursday, called for better options for prevention, early detection and care of young offenders.
Serious criminals, but not yet criminally liable: they have been on everyone’s lips in recent months. “Such children usually become suspicious for the first time between the ages of four and eight,” says Sonja Wurm, a child and youth psychologist at the Neuromed Campus in Linz.
Networking makes a complete overview possible
Reinhold Rampler from the Upper Austrian Department of Child and Youth Welfare adds: “Maybe the doctor will notice something, the kindergarten teacher will notice something, and so will the administrative authority.” That is why State Councilor Lindner calls for all emergency systems to be networked. , including child and youth welfare services, administrative authorities, socio-educational institutions, teachers, psychiatrists, judiciary and police. Such a working group is intended to prevent behavior that endangers themselves or others.
Only a small part is criminal
Compulsory housing in ‘social-psychiatric residential groups’ could also provide relief. Of the approximately 270,000 Upper Austrian children, only about two dozen are repeatedly exposed to criminal behavior. However, it is worrying that children are becoming unschoolable at an increasingly younger age – from eight years old – due to dangerous behavior.
Source: Krone
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