| A delinquent act is an ordinary criminal act that is committed by a minor and includes the full gamut from misdemeanors to felonies. Modern societies including our own have come to treat offending youths differently from adults. The basis for the difference is that adults are presumed to be responsible for their criminal behavior whereas young perpetrators are generally considered not to be responsible. According to the Turkish criminal law offenders who are under the age of 12 at the time of the offence are not responsible of their criminal act. On the other hand, offenders who are between 12 and 15 at the time of the offence have to be testified about the capacity to think and behave in a mature fashion for the crime they have committed. Offenders who are between 15 and 18 at the time at the offence are partially responsible and they are to be imposed of reduced punishment. The objectives of this paper are to describe and to compare patterns and changes in juvenile delinquency in Turkey during the past decade. The data used in this paper is compiled from the Judicial Statistics Division of State Institute of Statistics of Turkey. |
Updated 05/20/2006