Three 14-year-olds and two 12-12 months-olds are the main suspects related to the rape of a female within Mülheim. The case has sparked a debate about whether kids should be criminally responsible in Germany.
On Monday, prosecutors in Germany’s Ruhr place introduced that they had been preserving a 14-year-old in custody on suspicion of rape.
Given the severity of the contemporary expenses and two previous reviews for sexual harassment, police have imprisoned the boy pre-emptively.
Fourteen 14-year-olds- and 12-year-olds were taken into custody inside the Ruhr city of Mülheim on Friday on suspicion of rape after citizens said a “grave sexual crime” to police. All five suspects are of Bulgarian nationality, German media mentioned.
“Appropriate measures are being organized,” the nearby authorities in Düsseldorf said on Monday. The references cited issues approximately fellow college students as a motive for detaining teenagers.
Case shocks Germany
The five youths are suspected of involvement in the rape of an 18-12 months-antique girl in a wooded area at the back of a playground in Mülheim on Friday.
Several locals stated that they had observed their canine in an area close to a playground in the back of their lawn to discover young adult males and young ladies.
“The witnesses reacted perfectly,” a spokesperson for the police in the nearby town of Essen said.
Police later observed that the group consisted of five boys. The female changed into handled in a clinic.
The 12-year-olds, who are too young to be prosecuted in keeping with German law, have been handed over to their mother and father. The teenagers were interrogated and spent the night at the station before being released on Saturday. All five are suspended from college until the summertime vacation starts on July 15.
The debate about young people’s crimes
The case shocked Germany and sparked a debate about the age of criminal legal responsibility and whether you. S. A .’s policies should be changed.
Under German law, kids under 14 are not deemed criminally accountable. Liability lies as an alternative with their mother and father, legal father or mother, or the local youth welfare workplace.
In light of the Mülheim case, the head of the German police union GdP referred to the age to be lowered to 12. Although the 14-12 months-antique became on the radar of the neighborhood government because of preceding sexual harassment instances, he was additionally let go because he became under the age of crook legal responsibility at the time of the offense.
The German Judges Association has driven again in opposition to the inspiration, announcing it would not discourage adolescents’ crime.
“Equating extra crook law with much less crime does no longer paintings for the younger,” association chairman Jens Anisa informed news employer DPA. He introduced the present-day juvenile justice device “has led to a sizeable decline in juvenile delinquency through the academic task laid down inside it.”
The German Child Protection Association’s deputy head additionally firmly adversarial lowering the age, saying that youngsters welfare workplaces need to reply to the man or woman instances and probe the reasons for the child’s conduct.
How does Germany examine this?
Compared to different nations, the age of crook duty is enormously excessive in Germany. In England and Wales, legal responsibility begins at age 10.
It is age eight in Scotland, although kids can most effectively be taken to the courtroom beginning when they are 12-years-vintage.
The state of affairs inside the United States is complex.
For federal crimes, the minimum age is 11, while most of the united states of America’s 50 states do now not have a minimum period of criminal obligation. This method means that theoretically, a toddler of any age could be sentenced criminally; even though there are checks run in most cases to determine if a toddler changed into aware of what they have been doing out of the states that do have a cap, the long-time variety from as little as 7-years-vintage up to ten-years-antique.
