Juvenile crimes in Austria and Sweden: challenges of and policies for tackling youth crime
Fuelled by media reports of high-profile cases, youth crime has become a particularly high priority issue in the current public debate. Stories about gangs or individual criminals who show increasingly violent and delinquent behaviour at school, towards homeless people, foreigners, and minority grou...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2011
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| In: |
SIAK-Journal
Year: 2011, Volume: 8, Issue: 4, Pages: 60-67 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Keywords: |
| Summary: | Fuelled by media reports of high-profile cases, youth crime has become a particularly high priority issue in the current public debate. Stories about gangs or individual criminals who show increasingly violent and delinquent behaviour at school, towards homeless people, foreigners, and minority groups feature more and more often in newspaper headlines. According to national crime statistics, young people are one of society’s most criminally active age group. Most offenses committed by children, teenagers and young adults are property crimes. However, young people are also at risk of becoming the victims of theft, robbery, extortion and coercion. The perpetrators are mostly members of the same age group, often the victims’ classmates or acquaintances. These perpetratorvictim relationships are most common among boys and young men, despite the slightly increasing crime rate among girls and young women. As official crime statistics suggest, there are other contributing factors such as social background. The police and judicial system alone are unable to solve the problem, especially since criminal tendencies are often associated with family background, and are strengthened through group dynamics at school. For this reason, an active cooperation between the parents, school authorities, security agencies, and young people themselves is required to tackle youth crime and make the necessary prevention effective. |
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| Physical Description: | Diagramme |
| ISSN: | 1813-3495 |
| DOI: | 10.7396/2011_4_F |