Legend:
Interview with crime expert Dirk Baier from the ZHAW
ZVG
Dirk Baier heads the Institute for Delinquency and Criminology at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW. SRF News spoke to him about the increasing youth violence in the canton of Zurich.
SRF News: In the canton of Zurich, has the number of violent crimes increased for the sixth year in a row? Does this development surprise you?
Dirk Baier: The current development continues the development from the past. Now in Zurich we have almost doubled the number of young people who have committed violent crimes. Throughout Switzerland, the changes are not as strong, but similar. And we have that for serious bodily harm, for simple bodily harm, for robbery. It runs through the whole area of crime and of course it is associated with the request to think about it, to look for interpretations and to take countermeasures. There are always sacrifices involved. We look very closely at the perpetrators, but behind every perpetrator there is also a victim.
What are possible explanations as to why youth violence has been increasing continuously for the past six years?
When we look for the causes of developments, we always look in two directions. The first direction is the question: has something changed in the social-structural area? So, for example: have the prospects of success at school, of starting a career, become worse? And then we have to say: No, nothing has actually gotten worse for young people in Switzerland in recent years. That’s why we tend to look at the second area, and that’s cultural factors. So: What are role models for young people? What is important to them? What is important for their identity? And it seems as if more and more young men are taking a liking to this criminal identity. Taking pleasure in asserting oneself as a man by force, asserting oneself, taking what is due one. And from my point of view that is more of a reasoning context that comes into consideration here for the increase. Of course, all of this is triggered by certain media role models that show young people how a man should behave.
So specifically: Are these series on streaming services? Is that the rap music? What kind of role models are you talking about exactly?
You can find role models everywhere – on social media, in rap music, in series, which young people are also very interested in. But of course we also see them in politics. We see many machos in the world who have been in charge politically in recent years. And of course that doesn’t leave the young people unaffected. These are role models who exude power, who exude assertiveness. And that makes her attractive.
If we look a little more closely at the numbers, there is a noticeable increase in the 13-15 age category. How do you explain that? This shift, that young people become criminals earlier?
We see that not only in the canton of Zurich. I also looked at the Swiss figures again and we can basically see over the past six years that there has been a disproportionate increase in violent behavior among 10 to 14 year olds. And from my point of view there are at least two considerations that could be the cause of this. The first is that of course all these media role models do not stop at young people and perhaps young people are much more exposed to them because they reflect less and are less critical of these media role models. On the other hand, we are also finding that cliques and youth groups are attractive again. And if younger young people get into such groups, I can well imagine that they will also be used as an instrument by older young people to commit certain crimes, to commit robberies, precisely because they are easier to form. I think it’s role-playing, media role models and instrumentalization in groups that explains the increase in young people.
What does that mean now, when the younger ones are already becoming criminals? If you become delinquent or criminal for the first time at the age of 13, what happens next? Is there a generation of thugs approaching us, or can they still be dissuaded from the criminal path?
We know that young people can be diverted from such a path at any time. A 13-year-old who commits physical harm is still a long way from being on a career path. The Swiss system of juvenile advocacy, where lawyers and social workers look together at what a young person who has committed a violent crime needs – this system is quite successful and very highly regarded internationally. And I believe that the younger people are, the sooner we have to look, we have to react. We have to react quickly, not react harshly. We have to look and see what this person needs. And then we can dissuade him from it again very quickly. The norm, the normal way, is that young people do something once or twice and then quickly outgrow it. We know that from the past and it will continue to be the case here. So a generation of thugs is definitely not going to grow up. But we must also have the resources to be able to work properly with these growing numbers of young people. So: The youth prosecutor, the social work need resources to cope well.