Overview
- Stefanie Hubig rejects calls to reduce the minimum age for criminal liability, reaffirming the threshold of 14 years.
- She says harsher penalties do not deter youth violence and stresses that children should neither face criminal courts nor prison.
- Hubig urges responses through youth welfare services and family courts when children under 14 commit serious offenses.
- She backs exploring legal age limits for social-media use and plans legislation to better protect children in domestic-violence cases affecting custody and contact.
- North Rhine–Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul seeks fact-finding and a debate on lowering the age, leaving the issue politically contested without any legal change.