Attentiveness and trust are especially effective in combating juvenile crime

The researchers from Münster and Bielefeld emphasize that attention and trust towards juvenile offenders are often more effective than harsh sentences. Papaioannou Kostas - Unsplash Although coming from a disadvantaged background, experiencing violence within the family, having a negative school environment or consuming violent media such as films and computer games have little or no direct influence on potential criminal behaviour among adolescents and young adults. These factors do often result in young people regarding violent acts as harmless and spending their time with friends with similar attitudes - and this, in turn, is clearly linked to crime. These are two of the most important results of the long-term study "Crime in the modern City" headed by criminologist Prof. Klaus Boers (University of Münster) and sociologist Prof. Jost Reinecke (University of Bielefeld). The study differs from previous ones predominantly inasmuch as the latter included one-off interviews which provided 'snapshots' but said nothing about the development of criminal behaviour. Between 2002 and 2019 the researchers questioned around 3,000 people in Duisburg aged from 13 to 30 - initially every year, and later every two years - not only on crimes they had committed themselves, but also on attitudes, values and lifestyles. The researchers gained insights into the dark field of crime as a result of the young peoples' reports of offences which do not appear in any official statistics.