When Children Take Up Sticks

According to the data of the Kragujevac MUP (Ministry of the Interior) last year alone minors have committed 261 criminal offences.

AIM Belgrade, May 10, 2001

Recently, a group of some 500 seven and eight graders of two elementary schools from Kragujevac marked the end of the Elementary School Basketball Championship by a massive fight using knives, sticks, metal rods, stones. In this "child's game" one boy got fractured skull and several others were admitted to Kragujevac Clinical Centre because of sustained injuries. The reason for this major incident, which almost ended tragically, was the decision of the organiser of the final basketball match at the end of the city championship of elementary schools, to hold it without the audience because of negative experiences at the previous competitions.

Although the finals were scheduled for a working day, practically in secret, pupils appeared on the stands of the sports hall "Jezero" (Lake) ready to root for their friends. The organiser's decision to cancel the game because the supporters had shown up provoked the students' protests and rage which led to an almost tragic epilogue. According to one teacher, as they were leaving the sports hall, the students took out sticks and poles and charged towards boys from "the opposite camp".

This massive fight only confirmed what has been observed in Kragujevac and other towns of Serbia a long time ago: a disturbing degree of aggression and negative energy with which minors "square accounts" among themselves. Teacher Branko Krsmanovic, who was with pupils that day, thinks that the "conflict had all characteristics of cannibalism" wondering whether these new "generations are looking for their idols among the mafia bosses" and whether "Kragujevac, as a poor town, will become the Serbian Bronx". Zorica Krstic, in charge of juvenile delinquency in the Kragujevac MUP, says that according to MUP data during last year minors have committed 261 criminal offences.

Incidentally, this is not much of an increase compared to previous years, but what causes concern is the increased number of grave criminal offences committed by minors: "The number of minors who have committed grave criminal offences (murders, grand larcenies and robberies)is constantly growing. An increasing number of them are getting into trouble with the law. These are boyish-looking cultivated and well dressed young men committing grave crimes", says Krstic.

Drawing attention to the fact that in their fights minors are lately increasingly using firearms, rods, chains and rocks, our collocutor thinks that this tellingly speaks of the level of aggression among the young: "When minors violate the law that is usually a sign of the negligence on the part of both the family and society at large. The police have a repressive role to play when a young man breaks a law, but the family and school, which hardly fulfil even their educational role, are those who have failed the most. Not to mention their pedagogical role. Parents, who are busy trying to make a living and provide for their families, neglect their children and do not have time for them. Left to their own devices and having too much time to spare, young people come into conflict with the law and become perpetrators of grave criminal offences.

School psychologist, Milijada Zivic Ilic warns that the period behind us has obviously left far-reaching and serious effects on the young generations emphasising that during that period no one seriously and systematically dealt with the minors' problems. According to her the violence which children were showered by from TV screens, in school, in the street, at sports grounds and in the family, which has been totally broken up, has logically led to the intensified aggressiveness in children: "Children get increasingly aggressive toward those weaker from them. Thus they reveal their impotence, helplessness and insecurity. Under such conditions, the problem of increased aggressiveness in children could be resolved through programmes for the prevention of violence, drug and alcohol abuse, as well as of other forms of deviant behaviour. This could be dealt with especially through social projects by means of which the society and school would involve young people in programmes for helping the handicapped, the old and the infirm which would, in turn, help develop their social sensitivity and improve their character.

Criticising the "competitive spirit developed by our society, which makes people unsympathetic to others", our collocutor points out the positive example of pupils of the elementary school "Dragisa Lukovic" and the First Secondary School of Kragujevac who cooperate and mix with children from the Home for Children without Parental Care "Mladost" (Youth). "We are living in a town which has many unhappy, sick and deserted people in need of help and support. Indeed, such programmes should be conceived and carried out if we have at heart the future of our children and their more or less normal upbringing".

There is no doubt that children were hardest hit by a decade-long crisis. They had to pay a price for growing up in misery and surrounded by wars, war cries, daily victorious reports from the theatres of war all seasoned with turbo-folk music and reports about criminals-turned-heroes. Children are already paying this price and there remains much that will yet have to be paid in future. It is already late for some of them. Although very young, they are already up to their eyes in crime, narcotic drugs and aggression. And even today Serbia, regrettably, does not have enough time for them. Parents of Serbia wake up with a hangover from a years-long slumber and, concerned about the future of Milosevic and whether he will stay in our national prison or be transferred to the Hague, they do not see their own offspring but give them normal life in small rations and offer prospects of a bleak future. In Kragujevac young children brandish knives and rods. In a Belgrade Centre for Juvenile Delinquents, seven boys below 15 years of age have already committed the most brutal crimes.

Olivera S. Tomic

(AIM)