Germany is to consider toughening up juvenile crime laws after a brutal attack by two immigrant youths in Munich, DPA quoted government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm as saying in Berlin Wednesday. "There is without any doubt a problem with highly aggressive repeat offenders," he told reporters. The third attack in two weeks by youths on passengers in the Munich underground train system has catapulted juvenile delinquency to the top of the German political agenda, with law-and-order politicians calling for boot camps for the offenders. The proposed solutions, "which are absolutely within the constitution," would be carefully studied by the federal government, said Wilhelm, who is Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman. "As far as the chancellor is concerned, this debate is necessary." The issues would include stricter juvenile crime laws and the more systematic application by judges of penalties, he said. Munich police are holding a 17-year-old Greek national and a 20-year-old Turkish national on attempted-murder charges for bashing a male pensioner who had asked them to obey a ban on smoking in underground stations. Police are also holding three youths who bashed two adults in a Munich station last week and are looking for two youths accused of beating up two passengers who had asked them to turn down loud MP3 players inside a suburban train. Although only the first case involved minority suspects, a perception of widespread violence by youths, many of them born in Germany but descended from "Gastarbeiter" migrants who settled in Germany in the 1960s, has triggered a debate about ethnic crime. Roland Koch, premier of the state of Hesse, said last week there were "too many criminal foreigners" in Germany.
