Expert opinions

“A curfew for the children is useless”

Politicians are calling for curfews for "system criminals", but experts have different opinions on this.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

The call for changes to the legal basis for the care of so-called "system offenders" is dividing opinion among experts. Violence educators consider stricter restrictions for children and young people to be counterproductive and legal changes to be unworkable.

A ten-year-old who steals cars and destroys community facilities, a 13-year-old who has already committed over 200 crimes before his 14th birthday. Time and again, young people who are not of criminal age (this is only the case from the age of 14) make the headlines and cause horror. But what to do with such prolific offenders?

Legal framework required
"We need a pedagogical capacity to act. This is not specifically about curfews, but about a legal framework. If we can say to a child 'you stay there', we are able to act," says Peter Heidlmair, Managing Director of the Lebensraum Heidlmair child and youth welfare facility. Incidentally, the 10-year-old in question is accommodated at the facility in Pasching. Heidlmair supports the call by child protection councillor Michael Lindner (SPÖ) for changes to the regulations for the care of "system offenders". These should create detention options for particularly dangerous children and young people. 

Counterproductive according to violence educators
Violence educator Alexander Geyrhofer disagrees. He believes that stricter restrictions make little sense and are even counterproductive: "The children are already excluded from society. Additional isolation is the wrong approach." Moreover, curfews are not feasible. "You won't be able to prevent children from running away," says Geyrhofer. For him, the demands show that politicians are helpless.

Demands cannot be implemented
"More restrictions won't help. That shouldn't be the way to deal with children," says Alexander Unterberger, also a violence educator. He also thinks that the demands cannot become reality: "You would have to change so much of the current legal situation, it's not possible." Heidlmair, on the other hand, is convinced that they can be implemented. In the 50 years that his facility has existed, it has had to be rethought time and again. "New legal framework conditions are now the next step," he says.