Private Guards Watch Teen Criminal Around the Clock

German authorities find unusual solution for kid too young for jail
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 16, 2014 2:45 PM CDT
Private Guards Watch Teen Criminal Around the Clock
A police officer in western Germany.   (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

German authorities are dealing with a criminal so prolific and unrepentant that he warrants his own set of private security guards to watch him seven days a week. Also, he just turned 14. The Local picks up on a report in the German newspaper Bild about the unusual case: As a 13-year-old, the kid committed 30 crimes in three months—everything from robbery to assaults. He was too young for what the report calls "youth prison," so authorities put a three-member security team in place at a cost of about $2,500 a day to taxpayers. The guards follow him every time he leaves the house, thus ending his juvenile crime wave. And now that he's 14, police can put him in a juvenile detention facility if he manages to return to crime.

“I have to be responsible for the cost, but the protection of potential victims is more important," says the official in Essen behind the decision. (More strange stuff stories.)

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