Image: ROLAND SCHLAGER (APA)
The non-binding conviction of the former Burgtheater actor Florian Teichtmeister, who obtained 76,000 files depicting abuse by children and young people, to a two-year suspended prison sentence and conditionally checked accommodation in a forensic therapeutic center has again sparked a discussion about the penalties for sex offenders started. Well-known experts see no point in increasing the penalties.
“Higher penalties are useless,” said Viennese criminal law professor Katharina Beclin on Wednesday, referring to criminological studies in an interview with the APA. This applies in particular to crimes that are based on addictive behavior, as is the case with drug users or child abuse portrayals. “These people are instinct-driven,” emphasized the expert. They can therefore hardly be reached on a rational level. Rather, more important would be “awareness-raising measures” that help “that perpetrators can be convicted and convicted.”
“Don’t emotionalize”
It is now also a matter of not further emotionalising the discourse on penalties for sexual offenses or crimes. Teichtmeister did not commit a single act of violence, but procured and collected what others had produced, Beclin emphasized in this context. The primary goal must be to “catch” the manufacturers and distributors of abuse material.
“A distinction must be made between hands-on and hands-off crimes,” said Ingeborg Zerbes, professor of criminal law and criminology at the University of Vienna. Very high penalties for perpetrators who do not directly attack children would be “comparatively disproportionate” if they were related to direct child abuse, Zerbes stated in an interview with the APA. Demands for higher penalties “only result in sham prevention,” said the expert, who is opposed to changing the law solely because of the Teichtmeister case. “Cause legislation lacks objectivity and a sense of proportion in criminal policy,” warned Zerbes.
To protect the children
“Changes in criminal law can be a building block to protect our children, but more is needed,” said the Justice Department on Wednesday at the APA’s request. Because it is clear “that the judiciary only comes into play when a child has already become the victim of a crime. It is therefore crucial to urgently expand the first pillar – prevention in the sense of child protection – in order to prevent it as best as possible criminal offenses occur”. Child protection concepts therefore play a decisive role.
In the ÖVP, the Teichtmeister judgment triggered sharp reactions – with a penalty of up to three years, two years are in the upper third, that a first offender who confesses comprehensively is granted conditional leniency is common judicial practice. It must be possible to criticize the verdict, said Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) at a press conference after the Council of Ministers. As a family man and citizen, he personally does not understand the verdict, he has condemned Teichtmeister’s “heinous crime” several times. At the same time, however, Karner also condemned calls for lynching – last weekend, for example, alleged child protectors demonstrated in the birthplace of Teichtmeister’s mother, most of whom belonged to the right-wing scene and also carried a gallows. The latter could also be seen on the day of the trial at a demo in front of the Vienna Regional Court.
Karner expects tightening
Karner expects that “we will soon come to a corresponding tightening of penalties in this area.” The government already agreed on this in the Council of Ministers in January. Social Affairs Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) added that prevention, victim protection and criminal law would be tightened up.
“Many people find this judgment incomprehensible, especially because Teichtmeister does not have to serve a day in prison despite this massive crime,” said ÖVP General Secretary Christian Stocker in a statement sent to APA. This is “a fatal signal to both the perpetrator and the victim. It is difficult to explain that in the case of sexual offenses against children, the perpetrator gets away without imprisonment. This gives the victims the impression that such crimes are not sufficiently punished.” It is all the more important “that the draft for tightening the law on the depiction of child abuse, which has been with Justice Minister Alma Zadic for months, is finally implemented.”
Comprehensive package
“We must not allow the child to become a victim,” affirmed the Justice Department. That is why the federal government has developed a comprehensive package to ensure the greatest possible protection for children. This is based on three pillars: targeted prevention, better victim protection and harsher penalties. “In the area of the penal code, there is a reviewed draft that provides for the penalties to be increased in order to reflect the social injustice of the offences. In addition, the possibility of activity bans for convicted perpetrators is being expanded so that they no longer have to deal with children and young people in the future This draft will be decided in the first judiciary committee after the summer break with the votes of the coalition parties,” announced the Ministry of Justice.
The Ministry of Justice referred to the Ministry of Education and the Secretariat of the State for Youth, where a certification body was set up to ensure and certify the quality of child protection concepts. In turn, the Ministry of Education decided to introduce mandatory child protection concepts in all Austrian schools.
FPÖ sees “invitation” for potential perpetrators
The FPÖ also spoke on Wednesday. The Liberal MP Susanne Fürst stated in a press conference that she was “not happy” with the verdict. The penalty was conditional. “Of course that means that he (Teichtmeister, note) left the court and did not spend a single day in prison.” As a result, the general preventive aspect is neglected. It is an “invitation” for potential perpetrators. She also reiterated the blue demand for an increase in the minimum penalty.
Party leader Herbert Kickl followed up on Facebook in the evening: “If the population no longer understands judgments, then that is not the problem of the population, but the problem of the respective judicial system,” he wrote. The “Case T.” be such an example again. “The fact that there is no deprivation of liberty here is incomprehensible to a lot of people. Maybe because they don’t just push the victims and their suffering to the side?”
Source: Nachrichten
