Forms of Juvenile Delinquency. Causes and Prevention Measures (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Pedagogy - Pedagogic Sociology, grade: 1, University of Marburg, language: English, abstract: Juvenile delinquency is not a modern problem of society, but is only discussed more publicly due to its constant presence in the media. The current trial of three youths from Munich, who beat a man to death in September last year because of his moral courage, triggered a nationwide debate on juvenile delinquency and became the focus of social as well as political discussions. Due to daily "horror reports" in the media, it can be assumed that the brutality of young people and the extent of juvenile delinquency in Germany have increased enormously in recent years. But whether this assumption corresponds to reality and is not exclusively caused by the media is one of the questions to be examined in this paper. During many political discussions, the question repeatedly comes to the fore as to whether it makes sense to introduce tougher sanction measures and to tighten the Youth Act. Regarding these questions, many empirical studies are conducted that examine and compare the effects of prison detention and therapeutic measures.

Accordingly, this paper deals with the central question of whether tougher sanctioning measures can reduce the extent of juvenile delinquency and which possible preventive measures achieve an appropriate effect. In the first part of the thesis, the terms delinquency, juveniles and juvenile delinquency will be explained in order to create a clear basis of definition for this thesis. In addition, the age of criminal responsibility of children, youths and adolescents will be dealt with in order to give an overview of legal basics on this topic. In the following two chapters, statistics will be used to examine the extent to which juvenile delinquency has increased or decreased in Germany and whether changes can be observed with regard to criminal offences. Subsequently, the state of research regarding the causes of juvenile delinquency will be examined more closely, as the explanatory approaches represent an important basis for possible preventive measures, which will be the focus of the last chapter.