“Knives rarely stay in your pocket”

Police reports of fights and knife fights among young people have been increasing for months. Is the impression wrong, or have such crimes increased significantly?

Unfortunately, the impression is not misleading. In 2020, significantly more offenses were reported in the crime statistics in the field of juvenile delinquency than in the previous year. According to the practitioners, there are also many indications that the statistics for this year will show an increase again. The dark field research, i.e. the survey data, also shows an increase for the whole of Switzerland. However, I do not have the latest survey data yet.

Do you have an explanation for this increase?

One can only speculate about the exact reasons. It is noticeable that the numbers fell sharply during the lockdown. Then they rose again. Offenses often have a situational trigger. If many young people meet in one place, alcohol is flowing and maybe loud music is playing, problems always arise. I would not rule out that the increase in the number of offenses is also due to a lockdown-related need to catch up. However, the numbers have been rising again since 2016.

So you are not surprised that young people in St. Gallen fought street battles with the police in spring because they wanted to party?

That backlash wasn’t exactly that surprising. At this age, it is extremely hard when going out and contact with peers cease to exist or are severely restricted. The extent and vehemence with which this argument was conducted is, of course, a different matter.

A noticeable number of young people who took part in the riot have a migration background. Do you see a pattern here, or was it a coincidence?

What can be said: Young people with a migration background are more likely to be delinquent than their peers without a migration background. They are overrepresented in crime statistics and survey data. In my opinion, however, one cannot draw the conclusion that it was mainly young people who were known to the police who took to the streets in St. Gallen. We don’t know how many young people who mobilized back then also committed crimes. But I would not rule out that the riots attracted young people with a tendency to delinquent behavior.

Why are young people with a migration background more likely to be criminals than others?

We showed this for the first time in a study in 2008: There we compared the data of young people who had migrated from Balkan countries to Switzerland with their peers who had stayed in their home countries. The study was able to show that the young people who had not emigrated were statistically no more conspicuous than Swiss young people. So you can’t talk about imported violence or blame the cultural background. The stress factor is migration itself. You can see that in other areas as well. Physical abuse of children, for example, is also more common in migrant families and can be rated as a stress factor.

Statistics for the past few years show that around two percent of all young people in Switzerland commit criminal offenses. At the same time, the crimes are becoming more numerous and serious. So is a small minority becoming increasingly criminal?

Many young people, as we know from youth crime research, will at some point commit a lighter offense such as shoplifting. Most of them are phase or one-off. Around five percent continue after their 18th or 19th birthday. They remain delinquent even into adulthood. Usually these are those who have committed more serious and repeated offenses at an early age. This hard core is responsible for the majority of the crimes.

Experts also speak of brutalization. Head kicks and knife attacks are apparently increasing.

I hear the same thing from practitioners. Apparently, more weapons are taken into the exit today than in the past. These are phenomena that we will have to investigate in the future. Current trends are not yet reflected in the survey data and statistics. What we do know: When there are more weapons in play, the clashes also become potentially more dangerous. Knives rarely stay in your pocket.

Could it be that incidents involving guns are reported more frequently today?

The display behavior argument is overestimated. From the victim surveys we know that the reporting rate in Switzerland is relatively stable. It has neither increased nor decreased significantly in recent years. Whether or not a complaint is made depends largely on the type and gravity of the offense.

In the past, people wondered whether video games that glorified violence could be a trigger; today, German rap is suspected.

That, too, is an eternal question that cannot be answered clearly to this day. Do music or killer games lead to brutality? The question of causality cannot be clearly answered here either. Lots of young people listen to German rap, so that’s certainly not the only factor. There is, however, a very interesting study by the ZHAW on the connection between extremism among young people and the consumption of extremist content. The study was able to clearly show that the consumption of such content is relevant. Young people who have an extremist attitude also often consume extremist content.

What role do social media play? One hears more and more frequently of slight jostling, which only escalates when those affected call their colleagues for help via smartphone.

That will be one of our research questions in the future. In the last surveys, we took the digitization component a little too little into account. The surveys of young people have not yet really been geared towards these new digital phenomena.

Is there actually a simple answer to the question of what makes young people criminal?

Unfortunately no, otherwise we would probably have the problem under control. Certain factors are known – unstructured leisure time behavior, school weakness, difficult living conditions – but these usually only explain a small part of the phenomenon. We do not even know anything about most of the factors in research. We can only name certain risk factors. How these interact with one another, how they are to be weighted and what the causes are, has not yet been researched very much.

You say that unstructured leisure activities are a problem. Does a young person who hang out a lot with his colleagues have a greater risk of being delinquent?

Statistically speaking, those who hang around in a group in public spaces are more likely to be delinquent. Unstructured leisure time is a major risk factor. Adolescents who indicate in surveys that they are neither involved in a club nor do they otherwise do anything reasonable in their free time show a higher probability of delinquency.

Does that also apply to truancy?

Yes, because it leads to unstructured leisure behavior. In addition, truancy is often related to school weakness, which is also one of the risk factors. But what was first? Do you skip because you can’t keep up with school, or do you at some point no longer keep up with school because you skip so often? The question of causality is the great difficulty in this research area. But what we do know: There are always several factors that lead to a young person becoming a criminal. In my opinion, more exciting than the psychology of the perpetrator alone is the question: How do such factors interact with the opportunity structures?

What do you mean?

The opportunity to commit a crime is an important factor: not only in youth, but also in adult delinquency. When such opportunities are gone, crime is less likely. The lockdown made this clear: the young people could not meet outside, the bars and clubs were closed, the number of crimes fell. Of course, one should not neglect the psychological factors and explanations, but one should also pay attention to such situational elements. If you reduce opportunities for action, you can also make a difference.

Many fights or knife fights take place in the same places. Should the police break up more crowds of young people?

From criminological research we know that so-called hotspots play a major role. In Zurich, young people like to meet on the lakeshore; in the city of St. Gallen, it may be the Red Square. Excessive alcohol consumption also promotes delinquency. If the number of such metropolitan areas were reduced and the sale of alcohol restricted, there would also be fewer criminal offenses. However, I doubt that such restrictions would be socially acceptable: My predecessor Martin Killias once called for the reintroduction of curfew, which was not well received.

After serious crimes among young people, the accusation is often raised that Swiss juvenile criminal law is too mild. Do you share this view?

Swiss juvenile criminal law relies heavily on upbringing, which means that young people are formally warned or obliged to perform personally. A custodial sentence is only pronounced for a very serious offense and only when the perpetrator is already 15. A prison sentence of up to four years can only be imposed from the age of 16. There is a huge discrepancy between criminal law and adult criminal law when it comes to sentencing. The question is whether this really makes sense.

Can you be more specific?

I am critical of the fact that you take such a hard cut at the age of 18. If a perpetrator commits a serious offense shortly before his 18th birthday, he will receive a maximum of four years’ imprisonment. One day after his or her birthday, the maximum sentence can be life imprisonment, depending on the offense. Such a rigid age limit leaves little room for maneuver, either up or down, when assessing the circumstances of the offense and the personal situation of the perpetrator.

In a prevention program, young people are brought together with inmates of the Lenzburg prison. That should have a deterrent effect. What do you make of it?

If I’m honest, little. Why are we doing research when the results are not taken into account? Research results from the USA clearly show that these so-called “scared-straight” programs not only bring nothing but are even harmful. One hopes for a deterrent, but the opposite is the case. The young people from such programs were more likely to relapse. The initiators of these meetings are now saying that they did not take over the scared straight programs one-on-one. The similarities, however, are great. One should rethink these meetings or at least investigate their effects scientifically.