Displays doubled

Alarm! Ten-year-olds are already this criminal

Offenders are getting younger and younger.(Bild: BMI/Alexander TUMA)

They break in, steal cars, rob - the number of criminal charges filed against children under the age of criminal responsibility has doubled.

"Everything used to be better" - the criticism that children and young people have heard from their grandparents or parents for generations seems to be confirmed by alarming figures. Austria has a real problem, particularly in the group of so-called minor offenders. And the rule of law is practically powerless. Even ten-year-olds do not leave the house without a knife. By the time they stand before a judge for the first time at the age of 14, the record holders among the "young criminals" have often already committed 100 crimes or more.

30 charges against minors every day
With almost 11,000 reports in 2023 - an average of 30 per day (!) - the number of offenses in this age group has more than doubled within ten years. As Vienna's Chief of Police Gerhard Pürstl confirmed in the krone.tv interview (see video above). The hot topic is also being hotly debated in the justice group during the "Zuckerl" negotiations. The ÖVP is calling for the age of criminal responsibility to be lowered to twelve years - or for parents to be held more accountable through "police instruction" at the police station. 

Children in care are allowed to be out all night
In order to stop future offender careers at an early stage, however, there is a lack of dedicated juvenile detention centers. Added to this is the unwieldy-sounding Home Residence Act. This affects many very young offenders who are housed in supervised residential groups rather than at home. There is no way of restricting their freedom of movement. To put it simply: a ten-year-old can be out all night on the prowl without the caregivers being able to do anything about it