Over 780 minors were arrested for a year

Days earlier, Kosovo Police General Director Reshat Qalaj at a meeting of “Task-Forca” against narcotics in young people and for safety in schools, said that this year, under suspicion of use, possession or unauthorized selling of narcotics, 984 people have been arrested, out of them 194 students.

According to police data, along with narcotics, which constitutes a large percentage of the causes of child arrest, other criminal acts for which minors are assigned are also involved in physical clashes with bodily injuries, theft, and murder.

During the past year, under suspicion of involvement in cases of murder, 20 minors have been arrested, due to slight bodily injuries, 221 minors have been arrested, while due to serious bodily injuries, 37 others have been arrested.

For involvement in criminal acts against property, including theft, 187 minors were arrested in 2018. A (1) minor has been arrested for sexual assault, four (4) others, and other related criminal acts have arrested 30 minors.

Meanwhile, for various other criminal acts last year, 128 persons under age have been arrested.

Regions with mostly minors arrested, according to police are: Pristina with 167 fronts, Peja with 149 and South Mitrovica with 132. While other regions do not reach the three-scivil number of those arrested in this category (Gylanian 90); I blooded 51; Ferizaj 44; Prizren 37; North Mitrovica 6).

People aged 17 make up the age group with the largest number of those arrested, with 442 handcuffed during 2018. Meanwhile, 208 of the total children arrested have been 16 years old, while 98 persons aged 15, already 53 at the age of 14 and three younger.

A number of these minors are in court processes or in the suffering of punishment, while much of them have been released in regular procedure.

Isuf Iberdemaj, director of the Women's and Mitur Correcting Centre in Lipjan, told Radio Free Europe that as condemned, in a correct educational measure or in custody, 36 minors are being held in this centre.

The general number of minors, currently, at the correct Centre in Lipjan, is 36. Of them 34 are males, and two are females. Educated minors are currently 13, and we have 15. While women, one is mass (educative), the other is in custody”, he said.

While praising that the number of minors in the Centre “is relatively small”, Iberdemaj shows that the most frequent works performed by minors are, “the light and heavy body organs, the unauthorized possession of narcotic substances, theft, robbery, murder and heavy killings<3>.

Currently, according to him, there are minors sentenced to more than ten years in prison.

There are currently minors aged 16, 17. In our center, if it's long sentences with the Code of Justice to Mitur, we hold them until 23 years of age, it's about men, and after that age (23) we owe them to transfer to one of the other major centres. And for women, since this is the only women's centre, then women just go to the adult women's sector”, the director of the Women's and Mitur Correcation Centre, in Lipjan, showed.

Director Iberdemaj stressed that all convicts who have discontinued schooling at the moment of going to the suffering of punishment continue within the Centre, according to the Education Ministry program.

University professor and sociologist Fadil Maloch, who legalizes crime - related subjects, deviation, and social control, estimates that there is a range of causes and circumstances that lead to juvenile delicia.

The marriageing of teenagers has somehow produced situations, which in my opinion are situations that create this origin element. On the other hand, we also have a system of values, which has not yet been accommodated under the circumstances Kosovo society finds itself in. This then produces situations that produce predisposition and discomunication for teenagers to take the course of deviation. On the other hand (what needs to be looked for in social environments, socio-economic environments, because a kind of organised crime can also be addressed, groups which have monopoly on these marginal categories in Kosovo society. They're organized groups, not criminal, but criminally inclined, that raise the background rate to teenagers”, he praised.

As far as your economic factor is viewed as just one of the causes, Professor Maloch sees the main problem in the social cultural system.

The economic sector has its role, but it's not that determinant. In question is the system of cultural values and the misunderstanding of these values, the ill-designed lira, the freedom that is misunderstood and this then produces situations and confisive groups, some of which are organized and some not organised, some of which are marginalized and this is the product of a situation, not to say caotic, but rather said a more uncontrolled situation from the system, which would have to take more authority and create projects which would have to resiliarize these groups that are in the process of displacement of<1> sociologist stressed.

Last month, the Government of Kosovo has launched a campaign against the use of narcotics by young people and for increased security in schools and surrounding spaces, forming a “Task-Force” for implementation of this campaign.