Ten-year-old rioter from Pasching keeps authorities busy

The municipality of Pasching has a problem: Mayor Markus Hofko speaks of a “great discontent in the town” triggered by a ten-year-old boy. Videos are said to show the child breaking a window with a stone and driving around on the rims of a stolen fire engine.

According to police reports, on the evening of June 16, he and a boy of the same age went for a joyride in a stolen, completely dilapidated car. When other drivers noticed the apparently underage passengers and tried to stop them, the ten-year-old driver stepped on the gas and ignored several red lights. The two children were finally stopped in a side street of the B1 in Traun and questioned by the police. Both were then taken back to the facility in Pasching where they live.

Boy got second supervisor

At least one of those involved is said to have attracted attention due to violence. The minor boy spat at, scratched and kicked security staff at the PlusCity shopping center, reported the “Kurier”.

After the repeated incidents, the authorities began looking for a solution. “There was an emergency meeting with those responsible for the residential group in which the boy lives, the mayor of Pasching and the district police command,” a spokeswoman for the state police directorate told OÖN yesterday.

Last year, the boy moved to the facility in Pasching. There he receives what is known as “full education” – like around 900 other children and young people in Upper Austria (see below). Many of them had traumatic experiences in their early years, experienced violence and unsafe social relationships. In the case of the ten-year-old, these led to the crimes, the facility said. The boy caused unrest in the community for weeks. The state has therefore now assigned him a second 24-hour carer. Transferring the ten-year-old again would only reopen old wounds, the educators warned.

Mayor Hofko welcomes this step: “This is a unique child who causes unique problems, so unique measures are needed.”

The boy cannot be prosecuted, as he is not criminally responsible until he is 14 years old. Reinhold Rampler from the child and youth welfare service does not believe that lowering the age of punishment makes sense. The aim is to “enable personal maturation”, but in this case cannot “guarantee that there will be no more crimes”.

• 610 crimes Last year, the State Criminal Police Office traced the number of suspected children between the ages of ten and 14 to 1,123. In Austria, young people aged 14 and over are considered criminally responsible.
• 10,000 children and young people are currently being cared for in Upper Austria on a mobile basis – i.e. in their own homes. According to the latest data from Statistics Austria (2022), a total of around 277,000 people under the age of 18 live in the state.
• 1545 “Problem children” receive “full care” – the majority (more than 900) in institutions, such as the ten-year-old in Pasching. 600 children are in foster families. According to the office of the responsible state councilor, the daily rate for “full care” is on average 240.60 euros.