Teens to go unpunished for torturing pensioner

Unbelievable! Why not give them a medal. Very sad that these boys don't get some sort of punishment

If these kids were old enough to torture someone then they are old enough to be disciplined in a way they won't soon forget.

Fine.....can't be held accountable......then put their f-ing parents in jail!!! SICK SICK SICK!!!!

So there is no juvenile justice system in Germany? These little monsters can abuse and torture (yes, torture) an old woman with impunity? I am disgusted.

Wow. This shows the real side of German justice. Who then is responsible? No one? Where are the parents?

Had they killed this poor women, would we hear the same argument that their only 13 and not to be held accountable?

Erdinger, It's a matter of fact that they are not adults, if you think 13 y.o. are so responsible for themselves let's force them all into the streets at that age and see what happens to society.

Prufrock2010, There is a Juvenile justice system, but it doesn't come into play until you are 14, however there are numerous things that can be done to insure that these young boys straighten out (rehab and counceling).

As for these boys torturing this women, at least something will happen to them, we've got some torturing sob's in the States that got away scot-free

This is sickening. So, they're not gonna face prosecution. Only slapping their hands a few times? That's B.S. Find their parents and put them in jail. They must be held responsible for their kids' crime.

What's wrong with the society nowaday? What's wrong with German law?

In German penal law, you cannot be guilty (in the legal sense) if you are under fourteen - § 19 StGB (*) (Penal code). They can't put them in jail, but to be fair: You have to draw the line somewhere, here it's 14 years.

However, the victim can (and, IMHO, should) press civil charges, § 823 BGB (**); and § 828 BGB says that minors over seven years old can be held accountable for damages done. In practice, the parents will have to pay though; but I guess the judge will make the proceedings as humiliating as (legally) possible.

Hopefully, that'll leave an impression.

(*) StGB = Strafgesetzbuch = Penal code. English translation is here: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/index.html

(**) BGB = Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch = Civil code. Translation here: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_bgb/

Is this the direction that Germany is headed in? Poor boys, must have had a bad home life so there not at fault. Lock up the parents for one. I can think of many ways those two boys could be punished. Someone needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Whats next these two will do, kill someone? It's to late then.

Germany needs a "Boot Camp" for these young lawbreakers.

That's a disgrace!

They should put the little punks in jail and make them serve some hard time...then let some other inmates "abuse" them. That will teach them a lesson.

Obviously there is either something wrong with them or their upbringing. They should be sent into foster care, preferably far away from where they live and definitely not together. That way, maybe at least one of them might turn out ok.

13 is old enough to know right from wrong.

The law needs changing. Imagine the Jamie Bulger killers going unpunished!

I don't know what happens to them in Germany. I know in Iceland they would not be prosecuted but that wouldn't mean they'd just get off scot free. It means that child protective services, psychiatrists etc. will be looking into their situation at home, in school etc., trying to find out what's gone wrong. They might be taken away from their parents and sent away if it were found that their parents can not handle them or if they are the problem, they will have some psychotherapy to try to fix them. I don't really agree with sticking kids in jail and throwing away the key but something should definitely happen.

This is where liberal views on justice become openly laughable. When James Bulger, the little boy from Kirkby, England was tortured and murdered by two 10 year olds, there was very little hand wringing about whether they should be punished, it was expected that even 10 year old kids know the difference between right and wrong.

There have been more recent cases of children engaging in torture of other children, and attitudes have not changed much about the punishment of minors.

The two involved in this case should be punished in some way, but that punishment should coincide with rehabilitation and psychological care, German law seems to be naively ill-equipped to deal with modern day criminal cases.

the kids' rights are above the victim's somehow, it's unfair. at 13 they surely know the difference between wrong and right.

in their minds they've got away with it and can do it again. meanwhile the pensioner may not even regain her sight. poor woman.

meanwhile one of Bulger's murderers has recommitted whilst under his new identity, some sort of sex-crime although details are not being released.

The true beauty of Germany. The rules and codes. In one way good for clarity but in another a real piece of work as here. Bonkers, I also wonder if they actually knew this and committed the heinous act?

Absolutely appalling.

Send them to my house and I'll punish them something fierce.

That's the one thing that I am growing increasingly livid about in Germany. The lack of respect in the children! You have teens beating up elders all over the place. I know that the U.S. is not a whole lot better either. What happened to the day in age when children respected their elders. Have we come so far?

The parents better be held accountable! They raise a bunch of disrespectful children, then they ought to pay for it.

God I want to go home.

13 year old kid kicks an old lady, goes unpunished. Mid 30's professional male pays loads of taxes, but if he decides he fancies growing a bit of weed in his cellar, draconian German police come down like a ton of bricks.

But hey, let's not forget, cycling is great here, and there are some mountains too. Yay!

Dam she must have inflicted all those injuries on herself. The boys were there just to watch the show..

Seems kids are losing their innocence younger and younger. The laws should be reveiwed IMO, and I hope this case does not fade away but angers enough people that the laws are reviewed. These kids should not get away with this.

They were just talking about it on TV. They went to the house of one of the boys and the mother yelled at them out the window to off or something and the boy was outside and came at them threatening to beat them with a walking stick (wonder if he stole it from the old lady). They talked to the neighbours in their building and they didn't really have anything much nice to say about either mother or son.

You come down to what the aim of the justice system is towards adolescents though. Punishment, or instruction?

Should they be made to go to some god awful borstal-like institution, as a punishment? Is it vengeance that people want to see?

Yeah, 13 year olds should know the difference between right and wrong, but boys can be nasty little sods, will do things they know are wrong, so do they understand the severity of a particular crime?

Send a kid to some prison like institution, and they'll come out 100000 times worse than when they went in I reckon.

A good beating of those kids and a year in reform school wil do.

Hope I don't come across those kids....

What makes more sense?

Institutionalization for life. . .

. . .or. . .

rehabilitation for a few years?

Execute them. Publically.

This is disgraceful. You cant tell me these little rotters didn't know exactly what they were doing. This law needs to be changed.

Maybe someone should do to them what they did to that defenseless old woman.

totally inhumane...........god bless this developed society..............and laws which let such brats go unaccounted ..and which will take another million years to change.....and till that time all 13 year olds are allowed to kick elderly, or if required have access to guns and go shooting in schools....

This is a fckuing disgrace and pretty representative of the German Police's attitude to anything! Lazy Badstreds! Next thing you know they'll be 'doing a Jamie Bulger' and getting away with it!

Those boys should both be sent to a Catholic boys school to be buggered senseless! That'll show them!!

Dear Sir,

Be it a teen or an adolescent torturing an old lady/gentleman is an unacceptable social crime. Small virtues and virtues are taught at home by parents. Crimes and offences would come to an end if our children were taught to regard a girl as a sister, an elderly lady as a mother and a young girl as a daughter by an elderly person. I as a child I saw my late father calling every lady of his age as sister and a mum to an aged lady. The words go a long way in shaping our mental thought. We don¦#39;t see God, we see him in temples and places of worship or in paper photos but we can see HIM in serving the aged and the dejected people. That is why it has been correctly said that SERVICE TO MAN IS SERVICE TO GOD.

It looks as if these teens were enjoying by torturing the elderly lady, Rather than punishing them their parents must be taught the art of rearing children.

They along with their children must attend a part time weekly class on Importance of virtues and values in human life..

I regret that we live in a society where so many would immediately deem "revenge" the same as "punishment." Because of the heinous nature of the crime, it is natural for us to imagine our own versions of "justice." HOWEVER, we absolutely HAVE to acknowledge that the problem and solution are NOT immediate!!!

We MUST go deeper, psychologically, to determine the best available "social punishment" here. Directly, it seems like a disaster for these boys not to go to jail, but as the commentor "Pnewb" (entry #9) put it, there's still a very big chance at getting the German Civil Code to work in favor for this poor woman - which in the long-run, might actually be better for all society, enabling public authorities to better recognize similar behavioral patterns, and thus eventually PREVENT such crimes from happening again!

Also, we have to be extremely careful in generalizing the parents' failure to raise these boys "correctly." This is many times a TOTAL lost cause, because of the number of factors for which to be accounted (including drug-use, social-/academic levels, mental status of the parents, etc...)! If only it were so easy!!!

My personal opinion (to which I'm entitled, as is everyone their own): obviously the parents are not capable of the necessary responsibility here, so boot-camp, LONG-TERM therapy, and LONG-TERM repentance to the victim (by the boys) would be a good start. However, although they're old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, these boys are still only 13, and most likely will STILL be living at home (with these parents), so their home-life must also be taken into account.

A-ha, and who's going to pay for this therapy and other crap, you say???!!!??? BE socially aware, active, and responsible here, people! Support social programs, "write your congressman" (Abgeordneter), and become involved - so that programs like this will be available for such cases! Having the jails and juvies full doesn't always solve the problem!!!

Who knows for sure, what the outcome will be... but we can always HOPE that the judges in the civil case (should there be one, hopefully) will have social resources in their arsenal to use!!! Don't drink the Hate-orade, teach your children humility (not violence), and keep a responsible eye on your elderly!

Sincerley,

Your everyday Wanna-be Psych-/Sociologist

In Croatia when kids get stupid this is what happens.

Miroslav Tomasevic become the most popular father in his area after the media reported he had been sentenced to three months in prison for beating a teenaged hooligan.

Tomasevic, 58, beat the hooligan, 17, in May 2009 because he had attacked his own son of the same age.

His son was attacked by a group of teenagers who left him without teeth and with a broken nose and many bruises.

Tomasevic said: "My son even tried to hide that from me. He did not want anyone in the city to know he had been beaten. He claimed he had fallen on the stairs. But, in the end, he confessed everything to me, and I found the main attacker."

The father confessed that he was not proud of himself for having beaten the boy but claimed he had had no choice since he had decided not to tolerate teen hooliganism.

The daily Jutarnji list has reported that he has received support from numerous parents whose children have been faced with the same situation.

Many parents contacted him and even asked for advice because they were helpless in the face of teen hooliganism in their area. One father from Zadar even asked him to help him catch three hooligans who had beaten his son. A policeman from Zagreb whose son had been beaten by hooligans in a tram also contacted him.

In response to parents' reaction, Tomasevic said the fight against juvenile delinquency needed to be improved and parents needed to be included in it.

It is all the feely touchy socialists who have taken a great disiplinary tool out of the hands of parents to sort these little cretins out. I am talking here of the swift kick up the arse that I grew up with if you got out of line. I certainly haven't suffered any detrimental effects from it . You knew what the rules were from an early age back in the era of common sense.

Reduce the age of criminal responsibility to 10 years.

" I certainly haven't suffered any detrimental effects from it ."

Yeah, but what would your neighbors say?

You are following the American way, wait for them to kill and they will kill if not helped or stopped. These kids must be made to pay. I am sure you can find a law that they broke. If it was your Mother would the decision be the same. If you can't find a law they broke hire someone that can.

Should this (age of criminal responsibility) not be done on a case by case basis within the court system?

So 13-year-olds and people over a certain age are allowed to go unpunished? Is there no better test in Germany for knowing the difference between right and wrong? You would think after all these years the German people would have realized that distilling human behavior into categories (age, race, religion, etc) is not the way to go.

This is a good signal for others under the age of criminal responsibility. Shoplifting, bullying, any crime is ok. If such children get away with it, could they not be rehoused with responsible parents? When I was young my parents were the law.

No.

@don_riina

Does paying taxes now give one eligibility to break the law, what's your point here?

Should this (age of criminal responsibility) not be done on a case by case basis within the court system?[/quote]@ onemark - By that statement you are saying that all humans develop at the same time/rate/age, are exposed to same things, and at the same point in their life, and thus the laws should be blind to that fact?

The children need to be removed from their homes, be put in a structured and supervised environment and be made to pay restitution to the victim. It may be possible to fix them at 13, don't know, but doing nothing is unacceptable. Otherwise, these two will escalate until they probably kill someone.

This is similar to the story in UK at the mo - a children's commissioner has said that she thought the two kids that killed James Bulger were too young to face an adult court because they "did not understand the consequences"

I have a 9 and 10 year old.

They would both definately understand the consequence to James but at least one of them (my 10 year old) would not understand the consequence in terms of the effect on his life ie - what it would mean to spend 15 years locked up.

Should the courts (adult or not) go easy on them 'cos they didn't realise the possible severity of the punishment if they were caught?

This sort of thing has happened a couple of times over the last couple of years in England and it is just unacceptable. The excuse by the courts that these kids dont understand the consequences is irrelevant. Whether they understand or not is not the point, how do they think it is ok to treat another human being like this? Where do they learn this? If they dont understand these basic social imperatives then they are never really going to understand the consequences of their actions and should just be chucked inside for 15 years anyway. Which brings me to another point, why are prisons so unproductive. There is an untapped workforce here which could benefit society no end instead of draining it of much needed funds.

A bit OT but I hear that A great many States in the south (U.S.A.) have work gangs that work on town/county/state projects to earn their keep.

jmjdk:

The trouble is: where do you draw the line? If ten year-olds are not aware of the consequences of their misdeeds, then they're going to have to be made aware - the younger the better if the parents aren't doing their job.

You raise a good question in the last sentence of your post. If a person has a idea/notion that the act/action they do is not within socially accepted norms than they should know not to commit the act in the first place. The premise that I take away is that if the consequence of a particular act is inconsequential than the act is ok? The other thing that take issue with is "if caught", the implication being that is if they are not caught than all is Ok? For that I say, No...

I doubt that any 10year old wouldn't know that pouring/putting things such as spices in someone's eyes is wrong. It may need to be judged case by case, but in this case these two need both punishment and pyschological help. At 10 years you just know there will be consquences for doing bad things.

I feel so sorry for the family of the old lady, I would be going out of my mind knowing that nothing is going to be done.

It should not be about the consequences (time spent in jail) of the deed that I am addressing but that deed/action/activity itself is not socially acceptable, and that humans learn this (that there are socially unacceptable modes of behavior) at different times in their life. This is the issue that I am bring to the table. If what you mean by consequence is that the action might result in injury/death of the other person due to their behavior/action than there is something that needs to be addressed. But I do not think a law that states that all people by a certain age should know this, that is a tough sell for me. Children have the capacity to understand different things at different time/stages of their life. As well as parents bring up their children in different ways.

Òbviously in all these cases upbringing plays an importent role but consider ->

To a certain extent it is natural for kids to "do things" that they know they shouldn't. (raiding the cookie jar when no one is looking) based on weighing up the risk of getting caught/punishment against the "crime".

I'm not sure cases are different or should be judged differently.

A common tendancy for a foster child who has lost his mother is to steal. It's the child trying to find immediate gratificaton that will replace that empty feeling inside them left by their loss. -> So his perception of right and wrong are clouded by "fair and unfair"

His perception is that the feeling of loss of what-ever he is to take to the victim is far far less than than the feeling of loss he has 'cos something/someone was unfair to him and took away his mother.

Should we be "understandable" and let the kid off 'cos of his background - or should he be punished less than other kids or exactly as other kids?

This is where the courts come in.

If the court has a question(s) with respect to the defendant mental or psychological state, It has the power to order all the necessary psychological & medical tests that would give insight to the court on what drives (makes the person tick) the person to do what s/he did. In another word, to come up with any and all mitigating circumstances. This is where a law can not make those fine distinction that come in front of a court. Thus the best place for this to be determined is on a case by case basis in front of a court. If a law is badly written then the court has very little or no room with which to render a decision. Then the court is locked into a fixed sentence in all cases of this type that come in front it.

Punish the parents.

I think this is occurring already.

should parents be held responsible for their minor childrens criminal behavior

search.cga.state.ct.us

findarticles.com

I personally think that upbringing has a lot to do with the behaviour of kids. I mean if my kid behaved like an ass, it is a reflection on my parenting skills. I think the Scots have got it right. 8 years might be a tad too less but hey , nowadays , there are kids who even at the age of 8 can be monsters. I mean if they allow kids less than 14 years of age to go scot free no matter what the **** they do, then it will give the delinquents among them wrong ideas. It is easy for some people here to say that those kids probably did not know what they were doing or what the consequences were. Think of it this way. What if it happened to you or happened to your wife or girlfriend?

Give it a thought and then talk. I mean it is quite scary to know that children below the age of 14 and who are little monsters know that they can do just about anything and get away with it. Have some of you even seen some kids between 12 and 14? Some of them are nasty little kids.

I agree totally -> the severity of punishment may vary from case to case but there has to be something no-matter what the excuse re upbringing.

Whether you think it was right or wrong -> I think about stories my parents told about been too scared to be cheeky to police or teachers etc 'cos they would get a "clip around the ear".

I remember actually having respect for authority figures (even though I ddin't like it!)

Kids now know that people are not allowed to touch them -> look at the chaos in some schools and on the streets!

The same would happen if these crimes commited by kids go unpunished.

SKershaw,

Be cautious because you may be booed off this forum for what you just said. I did make a few comments like these before and I had so many people attacking me. The point is not that all Germans or many Germans are racists. The point is that many authorities try to deny racism. Forget racism though it is top on the agenda. There were many cases where people who committed hate crimes or so were just given suspended sentences. You might try to defend yourself against a Turk who tries to assault you and stab him. But, you will be the one who might have to face jail time. Strange how the law works in some lands. However, if you bring up this big problem in Germany, you are booed off because you are not supposed to criticize the land you live in. If you do , you are being hypocritical:))))You are just supposed to believe everything is perfect or just leave. After all, they say that no one invited you. How do they know why someone is here anyways?

I am also appalled at how many people point at only Middle Eastern men. My wife was harassed by a couple of white guys. I was not near her when this happened and no one even bothered to help. Everyone stared with their mouths open indicating that they did not approve of the behaviour of those men. The moment she ran to me and held my hand, those idiots went away. She only told me some time later because she knows how angry I can get when people harass women be it my wife or anyone else I know. Seriously, I think guys who harass women no matter what should have their penises cut off.

Someone has already thought of that, judging from TV programmes like Teenager ausser Kontrolle and Die Mädchen Gang, where badly behaved teenagers are rewarded with holidays in the USA and TV celebrity stardom. Dieter Bohlen and co. have even recalled someone jailed for assault to Deutschland sucht den Superstar.

/Off topic

The layout of the news website quoted (topnews.de) looks very similar to bbc news