Juvenile offenders are children first and foremost

Young people who become offenders do not need police officers or prison bars — they need a chance from life.

And their number is far from negligible: for years, the number of juvenile offenders has fluctuated between seven and eight thousand, four-fifths of whom are boys. Not every juvenile offence results in imprisonment — most receive other forms of punishment, such as fines, suspended sentences or alternative measures. In 2023, 470 minors were sentenced to detention: three-quarters of them were placed in juvenile reform institutions, while the rest were sent to juvenile prisons. This means that only a small proportion of all offenders end up in reform institutions.

The very purpose of reform institutions, compared to juvenile prisons, is that instead of focusing primarily on punishment, they are intended to support young people’s reintegration into society through a restorative approach after they have made mistakes or committed crimes. For example, perpetrators of crimes against life are generally not placed in these institutions. Instead, placements are more commonly linked to property-related offences, substance use, and — in increasing numbers in recent years — sexual offences. 

However, no teenage offender can commit a greater wrongdoing than the society and political leadership that allow children to fall into such deep despair and nihilism that they end up committing violent or substance-related crimes. 

A teenager whose parents — or, in their absence, society — properly care for them would not even encounter the possibility of such acts, nor would they know these paths exist. 

Every crime that Gergely Gulyás blamed today on the boys detained in Szőlő Street is a disgrace to himself and his government. 

And if we examine how many of these juvenile offenders are young people raised in state care, it becomes an even greater disgrace. Children do not need institutions — they need loving homes, or, in the absence of capable parents, suitable foster families. 

One-third of juvenile offenders were living in child protection institutions or foster care at the time of their offence, meaning that the proportion of state-raised young people among offenders far exceeds their proportion in society. Only one-quarter of the offenders lived in two-parent households. 

Source: Criminological Studies 60, National Institute of Criminology, 2023, pp. 183–211.

The figures published by the Institute of Criminology fully support the widely acknowledged connection between juvenile offending and family background — and show that state intervention has no equalising effect in this regard. Quite the opposite.

Supporting children to remain with their families, and preventing children from being removed from their homes for financial reasons, would do far more to prevent youth crime than sending police officers into reform institutions. By the time a child ends up in a reform institution, prevention has already failed — and often even crisis management has failed as well.