After call for help from Lower Austria

“Action sharp” against youth gangs in the city center

There has recently been a lot of trouble with gangs of youths mobbing unsuspecting passers-by in Wiener Neustadt.(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

Wiener Neustadt must not become Vienna - in the fight against rampant youth crime in Lower Austria's second-largest city, the police are focusing on increased priority checks. Not only the "Krone" was involved in the first campaign, the Minister of the Interior was also an onlooker.

It is not only Vienna that has a problem with juvenile delinquency; the number of offenders under the age of 14 has also risen in Wiener Neustadt in recent years. "But Wiener Neustadt is no place for insecurity and drugs," said Mayor Klaus Schneeberger and called on Interior Minister Gerhard Karner to help nip this problem in the bud. "With a visible presence coupled with covert investigations in the background", the aim is to prevent youth crime from getting out of hand as it has in Vienna. In future, there will not only be increased checks on groups of young people in the protection zones around the train station, Stadtpark and Esperanto Park, but also in the city center.

State police chief Franz Popp, city chief Klaus Schneeberger and ministry head Gerhrad Karner & Co. were present at the first checks in Wiener Neustadt.(Bild: Doris Seebacher)

Officers, dogs, drones
And on Thursday evening, the "Youth Crime Investigation Group" in Wiener Neustadt carried out its largest ever focus operation - 39 officers, including a drone and two service dogs, were out and about. In the process, 75 people were checked, four administrative charges were issued and one person was temporarily arrested.

75 people were checked on Thursday and one person was arrested.(Bild: Doris Seebacher)

There have been protection zones at the train station and in the city park since 2017, and Esperanto Park was added in October 2021. "Since then, around 4,000 trespassing bans have been issued here," says city police chief Manfred Fries. And the number of offenses has decreased: While there were eleven cases of damage to property in 2022, there was only one in the previous year.

Demand for station guardroom
Damage to property, assault, theft, drug dealing, dangerous threats and robbery - these are the main crimes that need to be brought under control in Wiener Neustadt. The train station is still a "hotspot", as up to 20,000 people flock here every day. "Young people come to Wiener Neustadt from half of Austria because there is a popular party mile here," says police spokesman Johann Baumschlager, pointing out that problems occur at weekends in particular. The demand for a guardroom at the station was once again rejected by both the mayor and the minister. This prompted criticism from Deputy Mayor Rainer Spenger (SPÖ): "This is show politics at its best!"

The good news at the end: "Arrangements for public fights between young people, as they occur in Vienna in particular, are fortunately not yet the order of the day in Wiener Neustadt," says police spokesman Baumschlager.