I strongly believe in an eye for an eye... If this was my parent or child I would make it my duty to go out of my way to inflict serious damage on all of the responsible individuals. I have no faith in the justice sytem here in Switzerland as they are way too lenient in dealing with the riff raff. I do not believe in turning the cheek.

Lets talk about canada

Ahhhhh they all free to go home then

Νot only in Switzerland...

I was thinking that also and actually, not only that part of the discussion struck me but also because it is actually a youth problem rather than necessarily a nationality issue.

News reports of crimes in the US don't always specify a nationality but almost certainly if they do it is because there is someone who is not a natural born citizen who was involved. Things being what they are regarding immigration in the US for the past few years, the distinction is more common than I remember it being before though.

ALSO, there are unfortunately many reports of youths doing unspeakable crimes out of "boredom." Some of the crimes involve other humans (a few cases I can recall of youths in Florida beating and even killing homeless men), committing atrocities upon animals or doing major damage in cases of vandalism.

Alas, to some extent I "blame" the internet for some of this sort of thing as I think that bored kids tend to do what the previous kids in their community did when bored, usually involving minor mayhem to be true but not typically doing things that would warrant more than a fine or maybe a night's stay in the lock-up.

Sensationalism in the media and access to Youtube makes it seem all too common as well as all too cool in that "synapses not firing correctly" sort of way.

Changing tack- call me 'old-fashioned' but what the heck kind of school trip was this? Where were the 'Loco Parentis' when these 15-17 year-olds were smoking dope, getting drunk and attacked not just this victim but 4 others? I mean all this must have taken some time.
My daughter is supposed to be on a Swiss youth trip soon. There has been this, the sex scandal at the Swiss school that Prince Andrew was supposed to send his princesses to and the Thurgau 'caught -on-camera' thugs. Is Switzerland still safe or am I getting this out-of-proportion?

Found this from over one year ago:

Youth violence is not an imported problem

Image caption: Killias says violence is more home made than previously thought (philippe Maeder/edipress)






Violence among youths in Switzerland is often blamed on foreigners, particularly from the Balkans, but new findings reveal that it also has its roots in Switzerland.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news_dig...64836000&ty=st

I've a Luzerner colleague with a well educated Malaysian wife. They moved to French speaking Switzerland because of the intolerance of the Luzerners. Here in Basel, it's not so bad, but we encounter it from time to time. The best thing is to look them in the eye and smile.

Indeed. One of the biggest hindrences to integration is hostility from the locals, because of a perceived lack of integration. It's a vicious circle, and both sides need to take responsiblity.

( On a plus, one of my Chinese friends has been granted leave to stay, on appeal. It's a complicated story, but the ruling was published last week. 13 pages of explaining why she failed to meet criteria of various laws. Then the 14 page: because of her high-level of integration, her full social life and her willingness to support herself (never being on the social, taking any job) - her appeal is allowed, she can stay. And the canton will pay her lawyer fees! ).

Was it a school trip?

My son and daughters have all be on school trips both in and out of the country, and they've not killed or beaten up anyone so far. They've still had a great time.

Is Switzerland still safe? Maybe not. But still a lot safer than many many other places.

This is not a purely Swiss phenomenon - this happens in virtually all European countries. If you read Austrian, German, Italian, Spanish papers you will find the same - whenever there's a crime the first thing reported is the nationality of the offender.

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generally, in all countries, the problem is not the judiciary, but the problem that police does not find the culprits. As that Chief-Prosecutor in Munich explained, THE point is to bring such people to court. This is why those two who only were present and did not actively participate in the assaults, were released and sent home. He only wants to see the actual and real culprits in court. They will have their defence lawyers, and so you in the end in a way may be disappointed about the final verdict.
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And a word about "duty to go out .... to inflict.......". If you do anything thelike, you will have become a criminal and if court will be brought to court, in Switzerland and in Germany alike. Self-justice canNOT be tolerated / accepted, under absolutely no circumstances. And I might recommend you NOT to utter such things in the presence of members of the police-force or the judiciary, as police in BOTH Germany and Switzerland might arrest you and take you into custody for many hours.

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Sorry, I just this morning corrected it to NOW ! No, no, the three culprits are not free, and NOT to go home, but NOW are up to court

My my, those readers must be almost psychic - especially since this incident only happened on Wednesday and was reported in the late Wednesday afternoon news.

20min (not hte greatest news source I grant you) reports today that there is a possibility of the offenders serving their sentences in Switzerland.

Unfortunately, as Gandhi pointed out some years back, an eye for an eye just makes the whole world blind.
Do you perhaps think Sharia punishments such as hacking off hands and feet are also appropriate? Fortunately most of the world has learned to move on and find other sources of punishment - the real debate is about whether such punishments have any effect. BBC Radio 4 recently ran a programme about the Borstal system in England including interviews with some former "inmates" All stated that the Borstal system was in effect a school for villains and that whilst many were not wrong 'uns when they went into Borstal, they certainly were when released. This was to mark the 30th anniversary of the release of the film "Scum"

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Yes, you DO get this out of proportion. While NOT denying that problems do exist, also in Switzerland just as elsewhere, the general pattern is still the same. And so we come to the start of your post.
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Where were the teachers ? I still remember, that already on excursions in the 5th and 6th primary class, and far more so in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd secondary class, the teachers, particularily on multi-days excursions gave us many hours for ourselves. They gave out the general rules, but there were no advice-lists telling us
> not to kill people
> not to commit robberies
> not to rob a bank
> not to beat passers-by to pulp
> not to commit suicide
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I mean, if a teacher has to be around his students all the time, has to control them and cannot allow them a free evening out, then an excursion has to be cancelled.
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HOWEVER, things will get changed, as the Minister of Justice of the Canton of Zurich explained. For instance, police and judiciary WILL HAVE to inform the teachers in case of serious crimes of their students. It is quite obvious that, had the teacher(s) known about the crimes committed by these three, they would either have taken some serious precautions or more likely NOT taken them to Munich.

NOT in full. Which means that after the final verdict is issued, negotiations will be started both between the Justice Ministers of the Bundesland Bayern and the Kanton Zürich, and between the Federal Justice Ministers of Germany and Switzerland, about having them transferred to a prison in the Canton of Zurich. But this may take quite some time, as those in charge in Zurich, Munich, Berne and Berlin will not give this thing too much priority. So that we speak about months or even years.

I do wonder sometimes if Singapore has the right idea with caning. It certainly doesn't fit with many of our ideas of fitting punishment, but then you're not incarcerating people for any amount of time with people likely to make them worse and there's also the element of shame about it that prison seems to lack now. Additionally, if you've got the wrong person, while they might well have a humiliating time of it, they're not being sent down for six months that they won't get back.
Obviously, I guess this would only be any good for small crimes, but then thats often how people start out.

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The punishments only are a kind of "reward" for culprits. THE important thing is that such culprits get caught. Bad is that too often, they are not detected.

Dear Wollishofener,

would you please do us a favour? ease off a little on the SHOUTING?

It isn't really necessary to capitalize so often, clearly this is a topic you feel strongly about but it's still early in the morning for some of us (and I have a slight headache)

Thanks and cheers :-)

IMHO caning, as taught by the British to Singapore and Malaysia, has no part in a civilised world. Incarceration ( the shame of ) and a damning criminal conviction record at very least might be the preferred way.