teenager

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According to Section 1 (2) of the Youth Courts Act (JGG), an adolescent in Germany is anyone who is 18 years of age but not yet 21 years of age. In Austria, the age-related equivalent according to § 1 Z 5 Youth Court Act for young adults is the same .

Germany

Prior to 1953, there were no special provisions in criminal law for 18 to 20 year olds.

From 1953 to December 31, 1974, the Federal German Youth Court Act was only exceptionally applicable to 18 to 20-year-old adolescents with a delay in maturity, even though they were not yet of legal age under the law at the time.

After a change in the law, the age of majority was reduced from the completion of the 21st to the completion of the 18th year of age with effect from January 1, 1975 ( § 2 BGB). The application of juvenile criminal law to adolescents is still justified, however, "if the overall assessment of the perpetrator's personality, taking into account the environmental conditions, shows that at the time of the act he was still equal to a young person in terms of his moral and intellectual development or was the circumstances or the motives of the act is a youth misconduct ”( § 1 , § 105 JGG). So if there is a lack of maturity in the person of the adolescent or the offense to be judged shows characteristics typical of young people, the provisions of the Youth Courts Act apply as lex specialis to the Criminal Code (StGB). The maximum penalty is then a ten-year youth penalty ; fifteen years youth imprisonment for murder if the guilt is particularly serious.

The decision whether an adolescent is to be ordered under general or under juvenile criminal law, decided by the juvenile court , the youth jury court or the juvenile division as legal judges who participated in the youth criminal juvenile court takes on this issue earlier position.

Serious development deficiencies can give rise to the examination of whether the culpability according to § 20 or § 21 StGB is excluded or reduced.

The procedural legal basis for determining an age is, if applicable, Section 81a of the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO).

In 2015, around 2/3 of the adolescents were sentenced under juvenile criminal law, most of them in Hamburg, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein. In the old federal states, use is made of § 105 JGG more frequently than in the new.

Austria

According to § 1 JGG , a minor is someone who has not yet reached the age of fourteen. Younger people are those who have reached the age of fourteen but not yet eighteen and are young adults who have reached eighteen but not yet twenty-first years of age.

Anyone who has not yet reached the age of 14 and commits an act threatened with punishment is always unpunished. A young person who commits a punishable act is not punishable if, for certain reasons, he is not yet mature enough to see the injustice of the act or to act according to this insight, or if he commits an offense before the age of sixteen is not at fault and the application of juvenile criminal law is not required for special reasons in order to deter juveniles from criminal acts

Since the 2015 amendment to the Juvenile Courts Act, young adults cannot be sentenced to anything more severe than fifteen years' imprisonment. The minimum of all threatened temporary imprisonment is based on that for young people (Section 19 JGG).

Switzerland

The Swiss juvenile criminal law applies to persons from the age of 10 to the age of 18. Adult criminal law applies from the age of 18. If an offense committed before and after the completion of the 18th year is to be assessed at the same time, only the penal code is applicable with regard to the penalties (Art. 3 Juvenile Criminal Code JStGB). There are no special regulations for the age group of 18 to 20 year olds.

literature

  • Sigrun von Hasseln-Grindel : youth rights advisor . Munich 2002.
  • Holm Putzke: Accelerated procedure for adolescents . Dissertation, Bochum 2003; Holzkirchen / Obb. 2004.
  • IR Pruin: The adolescent regulation (§ 105 JGG) in German youth criminal law - youth criminological, developmental psychological, youth sociological and comparative law aspects . Greifswald 2007.

Web links

Wiktionary: adolescent  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Art. 1 No. 1 of the law regulating the age of majority, Federal Law Gazette I p. 1713
  2. ↑ cf. the federal guidelines for the Youth Courts Act (RiJGG) , agreed by the state justice administrations , came into force on August 1, 1994
  3. ↑ Ineke Pruin: The Adolescents in Juvenile Criminal Law, 30th German Youth Court Day , Berlin 15./16. September 2017, p. 16
  4. ↑ Jakob Tschachler: Government draft for the Youth Courts Act Amendment Act 2015, University of Vienna, 2015
  5. ↑ Federal Act on Juvenile Criminal Law (Youth Criminal Law, JStG) of June 20, 2003 (as of January 1, 2018)