Teenagers devastate youth room: great disappointment in St. Margarethen!

Three 15-year-old boys caused great excitement in St. Margarethen an der Sierning when they devastated a youth room in their place. The young people demolished the walls of the room with an ax and destroyed a wuzzler by showing a firecracker in it. The property damage resulting goes into the thousands of euros, but even more disappointed for the community is the fact that this incident happened shortly before the room was completed by flooding. Mayor Brigitte Thallauer expressed her displeasure: "What can the many good visitors do for a few to be able to behave?" And demanded that the young people affected should also help the repair work while at the same time pointing out the legal consequences, since the matter could also result in a criminal record, as police chief Leopold Schweiger emphasized. According to the police authority, such property damage is also seriously pursued in the youth area.

Such incidents raise the question of how to better steep young people on the right track. An effective possibility of this is the prevention work, which is increasingly focusing on public order. Even before the comprehensive implementation of the term “prevention” at the Berlin police, officials actively searched for discussion with schools and adolescents, as they realized that this is great benefits for both the police and the social cooperation. In Berlin, youth officers are contact persons for questions that affect young people. Concepts such as the diversion, which enables to react pedagogically to juvenile misconduct, the investigation process is often accelerated without having to occur. These approaches that are firmly established in Berlin could also serve as a model in other regions to prevent similar incidents in the future, as the initiative of the Youth Court Act provides.