"A placement does not prevent young people from becoming violent and delinquent"

There have always been arguments and fights between young people. But if you look at the news over the last few years and even months, one does get a feeling that they are resorting more and more often to fisticuffs and that weapons are becoming increasingly popular.

In fact, violence is not uncommon on CSEE sites, both physical and verbal. "Being insulted is practically normal for CSEE staff. It's part of the job", say several former employees.

Particularly at Unisec, physical violence is said to be frequent against staff. Last year, during a rebellion at the secured unit, members of staff as well as police officers were injured.

"The youngsters have the power here. If things don't go their way, they rebel and immediately threaten with violence. Young, inexperienced staff in particular are easily prone to blackmailed."

If a young person physically attacks a member of staff, the latter has the possibility to be examined by a physician and to file a complaint against the teenager. "This is absolutely pointless. Because of our complaint, their file is only going to grow and how can we build trust  with this young person, if they are summoned to the police station because of us, the educators?", says a former employee.

It was mainly at Dreiborn that hidden weapons were found, including knives stuck in the ground, as well as tools such as a hammer.

A placement does not put an end to crime

Let's take the example of a juvenile who ends up in court for assault and then ends up in a CSEE facility. But this is not necessarily the end of his criminal "career".

Ever so often, residents of the center escape. This happens quite frequently. Between July 2018 and December 2022, there were an average of 17 runaways per month in the living groups, as the management of the CSEE told RTL. Unisec - the secured unit - is not taken into account here.

But what do these teenagers do when they run away? It's simple: the crime continues. "When they run away from home, they have no money. So they mug people, steal from petrol stations and shops, get drunk and it always circles back to vandalism," explain ex-employees. They add that they are often contacted by the police because their residents have been caught committing a crime while on the run. And this is no secret. Various incidents involving minors from the CSEE are frequently mentioned in police reports.

Two examples among many:

"Two youths assaulted and attacked in public": the suspect was a minor who had fled the Dreiborn CSEE.

"Arrests made after two robberies in Wiltz and Martelange": Two of the minors involved had fled from Dreiborn.

Minors boast about their actions

At CSEE, not all young people learn from their mistakes. They film their runaways and their actions with their smartphones and when they are back on the site, they proudly show them off to others. "We went through this too with the murder at Bonnevoie, for example. He has a dead man on his conscience. But at Unisec, he was like a star and he told everyone what he'd done", according to a former employee.

The fact that these young people all live together on the same site leads them to encourage each other and to commit acts of delinquency together outside of the center.

In the case of the Bonnevoie murder suspect*, for example, was placed in an accommodation in Esch. "That lasted two or three days, and then he hit and injured a homeless man together with two other minors."

A former Unisec warden told our RTL colleagues last year how he perceived the situation with the minors. He said at the time that the residents leave the facility in practically the same state as when they arrived. And he is not alone wit this point of view. "The way things work there, with the youngsters influencing each other... We're only producing serious criminals", says a former colleague.

*An earlier version of this article erroneously referred to 'the Bonnevoie murderer'. This has been amended to reflect the fact that a ruling has not been issued.

Is youth crime on the rise? A complicated question with no clear answer

Generally speaking, the number of minors in need of protection or juvenile delinquents has increased in Luxembourg. In 2022 alone, more than 1,500 new cases were reported to the child protection department of the public prosecutor's office. And we are talking about 1,549 adolescents who came to our attention for the first time in 2022. Either because they had become delinquent or because of family problems. If a minor already has a criminal record, the new offences are simply added to the existing file, no new file is opened.

In 2017, just over 10,800 documents were processed by the youth protection department, including statements, alerts and reports. In 2022, over 16,800 documents were processed by the public prosecutor's office. This represents an increase of more than 50% in just six years. "These results are the fruits of the public prosecutor's office's campaigns and interventions to unbundle procedures relating to children's rights and assistance", explains the public prosecutor's office.

Whether juvenile crime is on the rise in Luxembourg is a question that no one can answer. Given that in Luxembourg youth protection and juvenile criminal law fall under the same legislation and therefore the same judicial bodies, there are no separate figures and therefore no statistics on the evolution of the two phenomena in recent years. This is about to change in the future. New legislation has been drafted to separate juvenile criminal law and child protection.

CSEE office talks of zero tolerance of violence

In addition to drugs, violence and aggression are said to be another major problem among boarders. An increased potential for aggression is reported. "We obviously try to protect our staff as best we can. But it's not easy to pass on the message of safety to young people when even the staff don't feel safe", according to the management.

The protection of minors, but above all of staff, is said to be the highest priority at CSEE, so there would be no hesitations in the event of physical violence. To ensure that things don't go that far, a lot of training are organised concerning de-escalation. "It all starts with getting to know the group and observing its dynamics. If I notice that there's a tension between two youngsters, then it's a good idea to separate them by offering two different activities and not putting them in the same group," explains boy group coordinator Yannick Gomes. Asked whether this can be applied on a day-to-day basis, however, he admitted that it is not always that simple.

Thanks to the presence of security guards, there have been some small improvements in terms of serious violence. And the number of police interventions on the site is said to have fallen sharply, because the guards are immediately on site and can act quickly in the event of an attack. If the situation escalates, staff do take rigorous steps, say the CSEE management, but also the Ministry of Education, Children and Youth. According to Gilles Dhamen, Senior Advisor at the Ministry, "A zero-tolerance policy applies".

In such a context, runaways are inevitable, according to Gilles Dhamen. Minors are never in a CSEE facility of their own free will, and excluding the Unisec, minors are not locked up. So runaways are not rare. To say that every runaway also becomes criminal is wrong, though. "There are many who escape to return to their families, to settle something with friends or to be taken in by a friend," explains the Ministry's Senior Adviser.

If a resident runs away, the educators try to contact them and persuade them to return. However, staff also often cooperate with the police. If they have a suspicion about the minor's whereabouts, an educator may go there to check, or the matter may be referred to the officers," explains the CSEE office.

If a runaway resident commits an act of delinquency, the proper treatment of the minor when they return to the facility is extremely important, explains Yannick Gomes. "We need to make it clear that what they did was not right, and on the other hand, we must not frighten them to the point where they immediately run away again. So it's a very sensitive issue. The best way to deal with it is to make the minor understand how his victim feels when such incidents occur and what it does to the person concerned."

Generally speaking, in such situations, the link between educators and minors is extremely important. But the educators wouldn't let everything go.

*From the outside it is difficult to ascertain the exact practices which take place at the CSEE, primarily due to staff privacy. Five former employees opted to speak to RTL, on condition of anonymity. RTL has not disclosed their site of employment. The interviews focused only on events personally experienced by the former staff members.*