Juvenile Crime and the Practice of Juvenile Justice

A key area where the Weimar Republic's new approach to the juvenile delinquent was to be tested was the treatment of juvenile crime. Statistics on criminality rates recorded the number of convictions for offences against Reich laws. A comparison between trends in crime generally and trends in juvenile crime over this period must take into account the fact that the age of criminal responsibility was raised from twelve to fourteen years under the Juvenile Courts Law of 1923. Juvenile Courts Law were only fully evident in 1925, when the number of juveniles convicted of criminal offences in Hamburg fell to 461. The rising number of cases in the juvenile court where young people were involved in clashes with the state authorities reflected the increase of political tensions and of open political conflict during this period.