Juvenile criminal law

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The juvenile justice system is the special criminal law and special criminal procedure for juvenile and adolescent offenders . It includes the idea of ​​parenting , which is particularly reflected in the diverse, graduated response options. With timely and educational measures, such as the implementation of a victim-offender settlement or a social training course (for example in the form of anti-violence training ), the judicial authorities also make a contribution to the prevention of further criminal offenses .

In Germany, all criminal offenses committed by registered suspects between the ages of 14 and 20 inclusive are subsumed under the term juvenile delinquency .

history

In developmental psychology , children are only able to see the injustice of an act and to act in accordance with this insight from a certain age . This knowledge was already present when the first public criminal law was created .

The Roman law laid the criminal responsibility established by children at 7 years if they were capable of discernment. The legal collections of the Middle Ages (for example the Sachsenspiegel or similar) did not provide for any uniform regulations. In principle, the age of criminal responsibility began between 7 and 14 years. The “infantes” (up to 7 years of age) were usually not punished, at best were “slightly” chastised. The “impuberes” (the immature, 7 to 13 years of age) were prosecuted according to their level of development, while the “minores” (young people, 14 to 25 years of age) were subject to criminal law like adults. There have been times when 13 and 14-year-olds were sentenced to death and carried out.

In Norway , the "half-penitent" man (12 to 15 years old) was given half the sentence. Acts by children from 7 years of age were charged with negligence on the guardian . The child was regularly chastised (by the guardian or the injured person); Death and physical sentences ( torture ) were restricted.

In the first codified German criminal law, the Tyrolean Maleficent Code of 1499, only eighteen-year-olds were pilloried, chastised and expelled for minor theft; in the case of serious theft, only those should be hanged or drowned; in the case of juveniles, the punishment was left to the discretion of the court. The Constitutio Criminalis Carolina (CCC) of 1532 stipulated that in the event of theft (Article 164), for example, the offender under the age of 14 was punished with corporal punishment instead of death.

In the French Code Pénal of 1810, under 16-year-olds had to be assessed individually. If this was the case, general criminal law was applied.

In the United States there is no single age from when a child by a juvenile court may be sentenced (Juvenile court). Depending on the state, the minimum age varies from 10 to mostly 13 years to 17 or 18 years of age. Not all children and adolescents who commit a crime have to appear before a court, as the police may use other options for less serious offenses according to official factors. In some states, like Washington , the minimum age depends on the severity of the crime. In 1966 the United States Supreme Court ruled that juveniles must be allowed to trial; the waiver of the jurisdiction of a juvenile court must be voluntary.

In the course of the 19th century, the age of criminal responsibility in the individual German states was set at 8, 10, 12 or 14 years. With the Imperial Criminal Code of 1871, the age of criminal responsibility was set at 12 years, up to the age of 18, milder penalties applied .

At the end of the 19th century there were increasing efforts to create a special juvenile criminal law. The first fruits of this development were that the first juvenile court was established in 1908 and the first juvenile prison in 1912. In 1923 the Youth Courts Act (JGG) was passed, which placed the emphasis on educational measures. However, it was changed significantly in the Third Reich. Today's JGG passed the Bundestag in 1953 and built on the main features of the law of 1923.

Individual representations

literature

  • Klaus Laubenthal, Helmut Baier, Nina Nestler: Juvenile criminal law. Springer-Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-662-45026-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cooperation in preventing and combating juvenile delinquency. Joint circular of the Ministry of the Interior and Municipalities , the Ministry of Justice , the Ministry of Health, Emancipation, Care and Old Age , the Ministry of Family, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport and the Ministry of Schools and Further Education of August 22, 2014. In: Ministerialblatt NRW. Edition 2014 No. 25 of September 5, 2014, pp. 485-510.
  2. ↑ Laubenthal et al., Jugendstrafrecht, p. 11.