Violent Crime Perpetrated by Young People

Abstract

Results: 92 (80.7%) of the offenders were German citizens, 12 (10.5%) were from immigrant families, and 22 (19.3%) were foreigners. In 96 cases (84.2%), a psychiatric diagnosis was made at the time of assessment; this was not the case for only 18 individuals (15.8%). 20 (17.5%) were admitted to a psychiatric hospital or drug withdrawal clinic. 44 (38.6%) developed into chronic criminal offenders who continued to commit crimes after the index offense. As a subgroup of the chronic criminal offenders, 13 individuals (11.4% of the overall sample) were identified as multiple intensive offenders; these individuals displayed the most extreme features in every respect. A total of 70 individuals (61.4%) no longer came to the attention of the criminal justice system during the entire duration of follow-up after the index offense. The legal prognosis test was able to predict the offenders’ further course with statistical significance, but not accurately enough to be safe. Discussion: The high rate of mental disorders (84.2%) is noteworthy and in accordance with other, comparable studies. This finding implies that more importance should be attached to psychiatric and psychological diagnosis and treatment. We did not find any limitation of cognitive function in our group of subjects, even though this has been reported in multiple studies in the literature. The intelligence of our subjects was normally distributed. ►Cite this as: