The Family Expert is a European start-up company that wants to inform people on the importance of families with the help of flyers . They ask you for help because they want to challenge the question that the family is no longer important. Your task is to compile the information you’ll get and then create a flyer with which you inform young people about this important topic. 

Flyer EU

The criminal development of a juvenile

Rachid is a 15-year-old Algerian who lives in Europe. His parents immigrated to France in 1990 because of terrorism and unemployment in their home country. They hoped to find work and live under better living conditions. But they were not the only ones who hoped for a better life in France and so their dream remained unfulfilled. Rachid´s parents were very poor, so they had to find a cheap flat. In Saint Denis, a small suburb near Paris with lots of poverty, discrimination and violence, they finally found what they were looking for.

Not only Rachid grew up in Saint Denis, but also his three younger brothers. As a result of this, the parents couldn´t take care of all sons. Rachid grew up with no rules und was always discriminated against by the French society. But in Saint Denis, he wasn´t the only case of discrimination for many other Algerians suffered the same. However they felt a cohesion among them.

Due to the constant poverty, theft and violence were always present. Because Rachid was not attached to anyone, he spent his time on the streets and met other Algerians of the same age. In the end, he became more and more a member of a peer group.

Over time he established his position in the peer group. For him, it was like a replacement of his family. He felt good and thought he had found his place in the world, but it wasn´t like that. The other youths forced him to drink alcohol like they did. Rachid didn´t want to lose his place in the group and began to fight for his recognition. After a certain time, he also started to take drugs so as not to be distinguished from the others. His parents didn´t even realize that something was wrong with him.

One day the members of the peer group urged him to a test of courage, to prove that he was one of them: As they didn't have enough money to buy their alcohol and cigarettes, Rachid should take a gun and rob the kiosk. Rachid felt uncomfortable and he did not want to commit a crime. But the thought of being excluded from the group and of showing weakness forced him to do the test of courage. He grabbed the gun, took a deep breath and entered the shop. He put the weapon in front of the shop assistant and grabbed his booty. But when he left the kiosk, the police overwhelmed him and arrested him…

(by Linus, Paki, Moritz, Felix and Niels)

The History of Thomas Kolo

Thomas Kolo, aged 15, living in poor conditions in Saarbrücken-Burbach. His parents often slap or punch him. He is part of a gang with seven other boys and he is limping because of a problem with his right leg. Because of his disability many other people, in- and outside the gang, are mobbing him.

On Wednesday, October 3, he didn’t go to school. Thomas was on the school bus and like so many other days, classmates laughed about him. When the bus stopped, he fell on the floor. All the passengers on the bus laughed at him while he was lying there. He got aggressive, slapped some of them and ran out of the bus. Thomas then decided, that he wouldn’t go to school that day. He walked around for some kilometres until he arrived at a bakery. He was so angry and disbanded, that he stole some of the sandwiches which were on display. Then he rushed to the leader of his gang. His name was Fedor Kruse, aged 16, and very tall for his age. He offered Thomas some special, delicious ‘cookies’, to make him feel better. A few  moments later Thomas could sense the effects of the drug.

The drug inside the cookies made him feel like he was riding a unicorn over a rainbow, but in reality Thomas had taken a motorcycle and rode it right into a gift shop. He destroyed the window of the shop and some products. His head was bleeding, his arms were broken and he had to go to hospital. After making a full recovery he was taken to court and his parents had to pay 2,950 € to the shop owner out of their own pocket and 1,350€ to the owner of the motorcycle. Now he is attending to a new school and he goes to a psychologist every week.

Cristophe, Johannes und Niclas

The life story of Leon Jones

Leon's familial background:

His father stabbed his mother with a knife and now he’s in the jail. The boy lives with his grandparents (the parents of his mother), which are blaming him for the death of his mother. The grandparents are drug addicted and they are punching him. Leon hangs out with his criminal peer group every day. He plays truant, steals things and he tortures peoples.

Thursday, 10 o´clock:

‘‘Leon, come on we have to hurry up”, Justin, the gang leader said. ‘‘Yeah, I’m coming soon”, he answered. Ome hour later they came out of an electronic-shop. Their bags were full of money and electronic stuff. In their hands they held weapons. ‘‘Ha, this was funny!”, Justin said. He was the gang leader and 19 years old.  ‘‘Why had we killed the shop owners, man?”, Leon asked angrily. ‘‘He wouldn’t give us the money!”, another gang member said. ‘‘Alright”, Leon said with a smile in his face. He threw his gun away and went home. He heard his favorite gangster rap song on the way. He saw lots of poor people, but he didn’t care. So, when he came home, his grandmother looked at him: ‘‘Where have you been? You weren’t at school!” , she said angrily. ‘‘No, I wasn’t, but what the hell do you care?”. ‘‘Oh, I don’t care, but your mother would have cared.” Silence. The 15 year-old-boy went away. He called Justin on his mobile: ‘‘Hey, I had trouble with my grandma. Can I come over?” He grabbed his backpack and went to Justin. The two boys played Black Ops 3 and went to a bar and drank a lot of alcohol. At 6am, they came back home. Both were totally drunk. They fell asleep. In the night, he had a dream: He was in a dark street. Suddenly, he saw his mother. He smiled and ran to her. Oh, he missed her so much. He hugged his mother and there was time was silence. His mother started to talk: ‘‘Oh boy, I miss you. You got so old.” ‘‘I miss you too, mom”, he whispered. ‘‘You are a good boy, but your friends aren’t! You have been influenced by them. See, you’re totally drunk and today you killed someone.”, said his mother. Leon got angry: ‘‘I had to kill him! I need the money more than him.” ‘‘No, that’s wrong, boy.” He started crying. Then he took a knife and killed his mother. He recognized that he is like his hated father. Then he woke up and ran out of Justin’s flat to the street. ‘‘Oh no, why?” He wanted to become a better person, not only for himself but also for his mother.

Marie, Lara, Joel und Lea  

Dialogue between a criminal teenage character and her psychologist

by Susanne, Sophie, Elea and Moritz 

Sebastian

Sebastian, who lives together with his family in Harlem in New York, is a fifteen year old boy. His father has psychological problems, so that he’s not able to go to work. He has a problem with his wife earning all the money for the family, which lead to Sebastian’s father’s drug addiction.

Sometimes, when Sebastian’s father takes drugs, he abuses his son, Sebastian, for being homosexual and not hiding it. Sebastian’s mother, however, doesn’t know about her husband’s violence, because she spends a lot of time working hard. School also causes many problems in Sebastian’s life, because he often thinks about all his problems at home and in class, so that he can’t learn properly. He also gets bullied for being different. These reasons lead to his career as a criminal…

One day after a fight with a boy, who got mad at him, he decided to stay away from school. Instead of going to school, he rather spent his time in an internet café, where he became part of a virtual community of homosexuals. Here also made friends with people taking drugs. To be seen seen as a member of the group and as a relief for his problems at home, he also started taking those drugs, which was too expensive for him. After a while he had to steal things to get enough money to cope with his addiction…

Anna, Laura, Richard und Dennis

Mohammed

2 months ago a family, a mother with her 15 year and 5 month-old son came

as refugees from Iraq to Germany. The father of the two boys was killed by ISIS. Luckily, the mother is a doctor so she can speak English fluently and so they quickly found a small flat which had been offered by an old woman with a good heart. The woman has a lot of money and she helped the family very much. She helped them financially and sometimes looked after the 5 month-old little baby boy. Because of the murder of his father, the older boy, Mohammed, has been unable to deal with this situation properly and that's why he often is aggressive.

The mother has been looking day after day for a job which has to do with medicine, but unfortunately she hasn’t been able to find any job yet.

The 15 year old boy tried to become part of a group of German boys at his new school, but they didn’t accept him because of his background and aggressive behavior. Thus the boy looked for other and older immigrants about whom he, however, knew nothing and so was deceived...

14 days ago Mohammed met his "friends". They talked a little bit about different

things. The guys asked Mohammed where he lived. He told them that he lived in a

flat which belongs to an old rich woman. The guys wanted to know more about this

woman. Mohammed told them the story of his past and how the woman helped his

family. Suddenly, the guys had to go and Mohammed went home.

After Mohammed had done his homework, it was dark and he went to bed. At 1am at night he heard some strange noises. He went downstairs and saw 4 people which

were dressed black. They saw him too and wanted to flee, but Mohammed hit one of

them with a vase. He hit another one with his stone sling in the eye. He had built it himself because when he was aggressive he always shot birds. The old woman heard the noises but she stayed in her room and called the police. As the police arrived the other guys had already gone. Only the two seriously injured guys were still there. Mohammed was reported because of serious body injury.

7 days later, he was convicted of a serious bodily injury and was sentenced to three

years of youth imprisonment. He also had to spend 320 hours in an anger management training.

Robin, Niklas, Manuel

New class, new task

Dear readers,

this term my class started a brief project based on Max Weber's ideal types (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_type).

This assignment was embedded in the curriculum year 9 "Jugendliche in Konfliktfällen mit dem Rechtssystem". The idea was to create a character and situation giving a reasons and explanations for juvenile crimes.

Here are the impressive results: