Drugs and violence were part of the daily lives of most of these prisoners. Now young people between the ages of 14 and 23 spend many hours in their cells. 387 adolescents and young people are currently held in juvenile prisons in Hameln, the largest juvenile prison in Germany. There are 661 places of detention in these Lower Saxon prisons. However, over the years, juvenile delinquency and thus the number of prisoners in Hamelda has decreased. Before the pandemic, the smallest number of prisoners was about 320, but since 2022 the number is increasing again.

Several crimes committed by teenagers are truly horrific. In the case of the murdered Louise from Freudenberg in North Rhine-Westphalia, the 12- and 13-year-old perpetrators were not yet old enough to be criminally responsible.

There has been a slight increase since 2022, but “it is still too early to tell if there is a real trend,” says Hameln prison director Wolfgang Kuhlmann. For a long time, 62 places of pre-trial detention were sufficient in prisons, but now their number has increased to 92. Most of them are young people aged 14 to 21 years. The maximum sentence for teenagers is 15 years. On average, prisoners in Hameln serve 1.9 years in prison.

Statistics paint a picture

According to police crime statistics, the number of suspects aged 14 to 18 rose by 22.1% to 189,000, while the number of people under 14 rose by 35.5% to about 93,000.

“We have to look directly at the problems that arise among young people, including criminal offences,” says legal expert Teresa Heinke from the University of Kassel. However, since 2008, he said, the level of youth violence has decreased. The recent increase in the number may be associated with the consequences of the pandemic, general instability in the world, including the war in Ukraine and the climate crisis, the expert adds.

According to the Director of Prisons, a large percentage of prisoners come from single-parent families, and many have themselves been subjected to violence. In an anonymous questionnaire at the school, prisoners were asked what they lacked the most. 11 out of 21 answered “family/mother/siblings”, 5 mentioned “friends”, 4 mentioned “physical closeness/hugging”, and only 2 mentioned a mobile phone.

Organized prison life