Mental handicap common in repeat offenders

Some 40% of 600 young hardened criminals in Amsterdam are of low intelligence and will never be able to function normally in society, the Parool reported on Wednesday.


The paper bases its claims on an initial evaluation of a city council project to reduce repeat offending. The 600 people singled out for the special approach were arrested a total 15,000 times over the past five years.
The project, which will run for two years, was launched in May. Since then, profiles have been drawn up for 172 youngsters. Of them, 60 have so far been screened by the city’s health service and 40% of them were found to have a light mental handicap.
‘Experts tell us these youths will never learn to hold down a normal job,’ the city’s mayor Eberhard van der Laan told the paper. ‘If you want to do something for these people… you would need to put them in a closed institution.’
Fast-track
Police and councils hope a targeted approach, involving fast-track trials, individual youth workers, and possibly preventative detention, will keep the youngsters on the straight and narrow.
Once they have appeared in court, the authorities ‘will not let them go again until they are on the right track,’ Van der Laan said when the project was launched earlier this year.
Families will also get special attention to try and stop siblings following in their brothers’ footsteps.

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