Strafverfolgung und Sanktionierung von deutschen und ausländischen Jugendlichen und Heranwachsenden : eine Studie am Beispiel des Einbruchdiebstahls

Abstract

The study deals with the question of discrimination of German and foreign (juvenile) offenders by prosecuting authorities.The foundation of this study concerned burglaries into and out of apartments or houses, as the police evaluated these offences.A difference in behavior during the interrogation by the police could be noticed between Germans and foreigners. Germans decided more often to confess. Furthermore the thesis could be proven that younger offenders confess more often. As fare as the Public Prosecutors Office has reevaluated the criminal acts, it mostly changed to the lesser charge, to larceny or attempted larceny.A difference between German and foreign offenders concerning the issuance of a warrant of arrest could not be detected.Regarding the extent of the pre-trail detention one could notice that foreigners remained for a shorter period in pre-trail detention than the Germans .An indirect disadvantage could be seen when looking at the status of employment of the offenders, because proceeding involving unemployed offenders were less often dismissed, because the proportion of unemployed foreigners was higher than the proportion of unemployed Germans.The thesis that Germans will be more often acquitted under same circumstances, could not be proven. Furthermore the thesis that the judge dismisses more proceedings concerning Germans could not be verified. But one could notice that the age of the offender was important. Proceeding concerning juvenile offenders will be more often dismissed than proceedings concerning adolescent offenders. But it had to be taken into account that the juveniles have had less previous convictions than the adolescents.Looking at the amount of damage it can be noticed that in cases with high damage the proceedings were not dismissed.