JURI

A few bad apples?: With some Member States, such as Germany, reporting the highest rates of youth criminality this decade and given that socio-economically disadvantaged young people get more frequently involved in violent and criminal activity than their peers, how can the EU seek to address the factors and causes of youth crime, and thus…

Motion for a Resolution by the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI)

A few bad apples?: With some Member States, such as Germany, reporting the highest rates of youth criminality this decade and given that socio-economically disadvantaged young people get more frequently involved in violent and criminal activity than their peers, how can the EU seek to address the factors and causes of youth crime, and thus create better support mechanisms for both potential and already convicted offenders?

Submitted by: Dominique Cavallero (IT), Roan Daemen (NL), Jasper Hesselmans (NL), Athanasios Karageorgos (GR), Marein Oosterveld (NL),  Raquel Simões (NL), Annabel Smith (NL), Stefan van der Linde (NL), Susan van der Weele (NL), Imme Vellenga (NL), Emilia Borrusch (Chairperson, FI)

The European Youth Parliament aims to support the efforts to reintegrate previously convicted youth into society and overall reduce youth criminality by eliminating its leading causes, such as poverty, lack of education, social exclusion, and pressure stemming from their personal environment. In addition, it strives to support all youth by providing them with a safe and stable environment in which they can grow into successful members of society.

The above is decided upon because

  • 95.3 million Europeans are facing the risk of poverty, which forces some to steal in order sustain themselves;
  • Many adults perceive adolescents as rebellious or careless which play into harmful and potentially self-conforming stereotypes;
  • There is structural discrimination, leading to negative societal bias towards less privileged youth, thus further widening the socioeconomic gap;
  • The lack of quality education, job opportunities and social support leads youth towards being economically, socially and psychologically vulnerable and thus developing a proclivity for crime and being targeted by organised crime towards criminal activities and being targeted by organised crime;
  • The low level of personal support from households, communities and Child Protection Services (CPS) causes a distrust towards figures of authority and negatively impacts societal participation,
  • The existing stigmatisation surrounding therapy leads youth to be less inclined to seek it, which can harm their mental well-being and in turn increase the rates of their involvement with local crime,
  • There is too little action taken to rehabilitate previously incarcerated youth back into society,
  • Young people lack often media literacy and social experience which can contribute to them being easily influenced by media and their environment, and thus develop a normalised perception of crime,
  • There is a lack of scientific research on the topic of youth criminality, which leads to insufficient knowledge on this issue.

To that end, the European Youth Parliament

  1. Calls upon the Directorate-General on Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL) to introduce a new legislative framework regarding the raise of minimum wage adjusted  to inflation; 
  2. Invites Member States to further increase their support in social welfare systems and support for low-income families by;
    1. increasing the funding for organisations that prevent poverty, such as different food banks; 
    2. expanding tax exemption for low-income households;
  3. Urges the European Committee on Crime Problems (CDCP) to raise awareness on the harms of discrimination by measures such as but not limited to:
    1. organising workshops open to the public, 
    2. increasing existing legislation to further limit harmful bias and discrimination
    3. educational courses targeted at police officers and  caregivers;
  4. Calls upon the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) to organise events that represent all demographics;
  5. Hopes that Member States will improve the relationship between the police force and local and vulnerable communities by decentralising nation-wide law enforcement;
  6. Urges the Directorate-General on Education, Youth, Sport & Culture (DG EAC) to invest in CPSs across Member States, allowing cases to be reevaluated, while increasing more particularly directed care ;
  7. Calls upon Member States to reinstate the public trust in CPSs by evaluating existing frameworks for national CPSs;
  8. Urges Member States’ national Ministries of Education to modify school curricula so that it contains themes of normalisation of seeking and accepting support;
  9. Requests Member States to include therapy in the basic healthcare plan and remove the need of explicit parental consent to receive it;
  10. Calls upon Member States to improve and provide numerous and easily accessible safe spaces and therapy for imprisoned youth to protect their wellbeing;
  11. Suggests the Member States to shift their focus in the sentencing of young people from punishment to rehabilitation;
    1. offering convicted youth a chance to contribute to the general well-being of the community through sentences such as community service;
    2. focusing on ensuring convicted adolescents receive dignified and proper education;
  12. Urges Member States to allocate more funds into their school systems for programmes based organised meetings between rehabilitated ex-convicts and students to create a broader understanding about organised crime and its risks:
    1. providing classes focused on showing the variety of benefits of therapy and breaking down the stigma around mental illness being  correlated to “weakness”;
    2. offering annual courses about media literacy in order to ensure young people are prevented from glorifying crime;
  13. Calls upon the European Commissioner for Youth to organise frequent events in communal spaces, such as  libraries, youth centres and schools to instil a feeling of safety, security and community amongst its student;
  14. Asks the European Commission to direct funds to Eurostat and Eurofound to research youth criminality more.

Lastly, the European Youth Parliament recommends participants to