How do you deal with such young offenders?

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Germany is in shock. On Sunday, the police found the body of the missing Luise († 12). The student was stabbed by two girls of the same age. The perpetrators have confessed. They are two classmates aged 12 and 13.

What drove you to do something like this – and more importantly: how do you deal with it now? The forensic psychiatrist Thomas Knecht (64) does not believe that children are born malignant, so that the predisposition to kill is hereditary. “It is not assumed that there is a killer chromosome somewhere.” When a child commits such an act, an attempt is made to restore the child’s general development to normal.

Emergency brake for future outbursts of aggression

In the short term, however, such a child must first be protected, explains Knecht. “You then have to observe how your aggression control develops.”

In Germany, children are only criminally responsible from the age of 14, in Switzerland juvenile criminal law applies from the age of 10. Measures such as shelter in a youth house can also be ordered before the age of 14 by the youth welfare offices in Germany.

But how are underage offenders put back on track? Knecht: “We try to stimulate reflection on the act and to ensure that an emergency brake can be applied in the event of future outbreaks of aggression. In the longer term, the lives of such children should then be led in a normal environment, so that they do not forever bear the stamp of murderers.”

Knecht is not surprised that the perpetrators and the victim knew each other. “It seems unlikely that the girls were looking for a random victim. At this age you have to look for the cause of the offense in the relationship constellation. »

Possibly related to puberty

The two suspects apparently agreed that action should be taken against the third party, Knecht tells Blick. “There was also a diffusion of responsibility, the two perpetrators shared moral responsibility.”

Knecht also sees the act in connection with a possible puberty spurt. “Girls enter puberty earlier than boys. There was probably an emotional imbalance.” The development of the anterior lobe of the brain in puberty is sometimes not sufficiently advanced to provide a moral counterbalance to the feelings. “A corresponding thought process probably could not take place,” explains the psychiatrist out.

“Children begin to experience power positions more consciously”

“We know that children at this age begin to experience power constellations more consciously. They start to think politically and seize power constellations.” According to Knecht, for example, bullying situations can arise. This is less the case with smaller children.

Source: Blick