Youth Crime During „Sattelzeit“

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Bernd Dollinger
• Subject Area: Criminology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 449820027

The proposed project aims to explore the conceptualization of juvenile delinquency during the so-called “Sattelzeit” towards the end of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century. It is assumed that during this period a fundamental transformation of the way in which youth crime was understood and should be dealt with occurred. Specifically, the following questions will be addressed:1. Is youth crime attested an independent quality in the sources analyzed compared to the crime attributed to adults in particular? 2. What reasons are given for the delinquency of young people?3. What reactions to delinquency are postulated and what goals are associated with these measures?These questions will be focused by three types of sources: Answers to rescripts of the Prussian Ministry of Culture since 1825, police ordinances and public debates in newspapers. The reconstruction is thus deliberately limited to the political-administrative and public discourse. The project brings together analyses from the three types of sources in order to develop a complex picture of juvenile delinquency in the period mentioned above in a differentiated overall synopsis. The project objectives include a reconstruction of how youth was conceived in principle and how special measures of help and education were justified for young people accused of delinquency. Therefore, with its focus on juvenile delinquency, the project will make an important contribution not only to historical crime research, but also to historical youth research, as well as to historical social pedagogy.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants