German authorities have sent a troubled 16-year-old boy to Siberia as a "disciplinary measure," according to media reports on Thursday, amid a heated national debate on juvenile crime.
The adolescent, from the state of Hesse, has a history of violent behavior and was committed to a children's psychiatric treatment center before juvenile authorities decided last summer to send him to the Russian tundra, the reports said.
The head of the youth social services office in the town of Giessen, Stefan Becker, told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the boy had a guardian for his nine-month stay and was attending school a 2.5km walk from where he is staying.
He is living in Sedelnikovoa, a village of 5,000 inhabitants, in spartan quarters with no running water, heating provided by wood he has to chop himself and a latrine he had to dig, Becker said.
Winter temperatures in the region can hit -55℃.
Becker said authorities wanted to remove the boy "from the stimuli of consumer culture" in Germany and force him to confront his behavioral problems.
"The conditions are like what we had here 30 or 40 years ago," he said. "It is not intended as a punishment but as an educational experience."
Peter Heydt from the social services office said the youth did not have a record of criminal behavior nor is he "the type of brute who attacks elderly people in the subway."
"He is a young man with a physiological imbalance who struggles to control his aggression. So the most sensible solution appeared to be behavioural therapy," he said.
He said the boy and his guardian's stay in Siberia was costing the state 150 euros (US$220) per day. According to the press, this amounts to one third of the cost of a placement in a German institution.
Heydt said the boy is due to return to Germany early next month or in late March and to enroll in school.
"He will live with his guardian and we assume that after his return he will spend the next two and a half years in follow-up care," he said.
In 2006, some 600 German juvenile delinquents were sent outside the EU in a program that has drawn fire of late due to sparring between Germany's two main political parties over how to deal with youth crime.
Four years ago, an adolescent from Germany killed his minder in Greece and in 2005 a 17-year-old delinquent disappeared for several weeks in Kyrgyzstan.
Hesse's conservative premier Roland Koch earlier this month called for a crackdown on young criminals, particularly those of foreign origin, by sending them to US-style boot camps or deporting them.
The call came after teenagers brutally attacked a pensioner in a metro station in Munich.
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