Minor perpetrators of violence - forensic medical approach. Analysis of the phenomenon in the years 2015–2020 in Poznan and neighboring municipalities – a retrospective study

Background

Violence is a multifaceted phenomenon that commonly occurs in society. It can take many forms. A particular phenomenon is violence involving minors.

Materials and methods

The analysis covered 7689 events in the Wielkopolskie Voivodeship in 2015–2020. The mean, median, and standard deviation were used to describe the group. The significance level was p = 0.05.

Results

In 142 cases, minors were perpetrators of violence, of which 129 cases committed violent acts against other minors. Of the events analyzed, 137 took place in a public place. Both victims and perpetrators were most often men.

Conclusions

The obtained results are higher than the available Polish statistical data, because of the low reporting level. Among the foreign data, most of the perpetrators were young men. Programs are being launched worldwide to support, rehabilitate, and educate juvenile abusers and their families. Programs with a holistic approach to the issue bring the best results. The problem of violence by juvenile offenders remains a challenge for countries worldwide. The main task for state institutions is to collect adequate data on incidents in a given region. However, keeping statistics is difficult due to the small percentage of reports of this type of violence. In the Wielkopolska region, only cases of peer violence were registered. Lack of adequate support and education of families may translate into non-reporting of aggressive behavior of minors towards guardians.