In the past three months, there have been four incidents in Serbia murders which they performed minors or were accomplices in these murders.
The latest in a series of murders committed by minors is the murder of MS (64), a man who lived on the street in Belgrade. On August 20, he was beaten by a 19-year-old young man and two 16-year-old minors. After three days, MS succumbed to the injuries inflicted on him by these persons.
In July, during a robbery, three young men, one of whom was only 14 years old, killed an elderly woman in Bački Petrovo Selo.
In June, a 16-year-old and an adult youth beat a 60-year-old man to death in Bački Gradište.
The murder that caused a lot of media attention happened at the end of May, when minors aged 17 and 16 beat Đorđe Mijatović, the brother of the Vice President of the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in a children's park.
The arrested young men are charged with aggravated murder, and the police identified them with the help of footage from cameras on the building in Voždovačka Street, Dragica Končar. A part of the park is also on the video.
There were no direct eyewitnesses, but the first witnesses arrived when the larger thugs fled, so the video showed the sequence of tragic events.
The murdered man left the building where he lived, because his son complained that he was being mistreated. He tried to hit one of them but fell. He hit his head on the concrete and while he was lying on the ground, the young men kicked him. The ambulance arrived quickly, but Mijatović died shortly after being admitted to the Emergency Center.
A video appeared in public, on which the faces of the thugs could be seen and on which shouts can be heard and minors can be seen running away through the park after Mijatović was beaten.
Each case should be considered separately
Almost every day you can read the news that there was a fight between minors where cold weapons were used, and the participants suffered serious injuries, writes Danas.
Psychologist Tamara Džamonja Ignjatović says that each case of murder should be looked at individually, and not generalized.
"Each of those cases should be looked at separately. However, beating someone to death, without a motive, especially if there is no material gain involved, is, by all accounts, a severe form of psychopathy with a touch of sadism. And that is important to note, because psychopathy can exist without an admixture of sadism. What distinguishes, for example, murder with a firearm from beating someone to death is personal contact, that is, the killer invests much more in that act," said Džamonja Ignjatović for N1.
She emphasized that juvenile violence is the result of frustrations that are all around us.
"There are too many frustrations in society, but not every event is equally frustrating." They cause anger, but in the case of the beating of the homeless on Ada, it is not only anger, but also enjoyment, because there was absolutely no reason to kill a man from beatings," she pointed out.
Obscure content on television and the Internet
She added that young people constantly watch obscure content that propagates violence on television and on the Internet.
"They go unpunished, they are written about, they have money, they drive expensive cars, and in that way they become role models for young people and adopt such a model of behavior," said Džamonja Ignjatović.
She also mentioned that Serbia does not have a developed system for early recognition of deviant behavior.
"In psychopathy of this type, such as in cases of beating people to death, it is possible to recognize the signs in time. Anyone who is in contact with such children can notice that something is wrong. From parents, school, to their peers. However, we still do not have developed mechanisms to prevent such things. The opposite is often done, so in many families parents treat such children in such a way that all their needs are absolutely met, instead of noticing the problem and solving it," said Džamonja Ignjatović.
When it comes to sanctions for minors, in Serbia a child under the age of fourteen is not criminally responsible, no matter how serious the crime he commits. From the age of 14 to 18, minors become criminally responsible for certain criminal acts, but the penalties are lighter than for adults.
