Juvenile crime, crimes committed by minors, have troubled Türkiye in recent years, especially after well-publicized cases and online outrage. Underage people are often exploited by gangs to carry out hits, while the murder of children by their peers adds another layer of concern to the issue.
The Turkish Parliament set up a “Committee for Research on Children Driven to Crime,” and its members explained their work and suggestions to Anadolu Agency (AA) on Sunday.
Şebnem Bursalı, a lawmaker for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), recalled the recent murder of Atlas Çağlayan and how it left “a deep wound in public conscience.”
“This wound can only be healed by taking responsibility, pinpointing any negligence and finding permanent solutions. We are committed to such solutions,” she said. Seventeen-year-old Çağlayan was stabbed to death by a 15-year-old boy in Istanbul on Jan. 14 after a dispute.
Bursalı said such violent crimes involving children cannot be treated solely as criminal cases. She noted that children reached that point after a chain of negligence, spanning from family and education to digital environment and “reality on the street.” “We cannot overlook this; otherwise, it will be turning a blind eye to new tragedies,” she said.
“The need to update preventive social policies, the proliferation of unregulated digital content, the rise in violent rhetoric on the streets, and the failure to adequately protect children must all be addressed as part of the background to this murder,” she said.
Bursalı noted that the committee will present an effective, deterrent and preventive road map that treats children pushed into crime not as criminals but as individuals who must be protected and rehabilitated, while also prioritizing public safety and a sense of justice. “I would especially like to emphasize that our president is closely following the issue and has instructed the relevant institutions to take all necessary measures to prevent similar incidents from occurring. As the AK Party, we are striving to voice and put into practice his determined stance on every platform. We will follow this process through to the end under the roof of Parliament to ensure that similar tragedies are not repeated.”
Sibel Suiçmez, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), noted that the committee was formed after the murder of 15-year-old Mattia Ahmet Minguzzi last year in Istanbul. “Unfortunately, the murder of Atlas Çağlayan followed it. The rise in the actions of children driven into crime, changes in their actions make this a worrying trend and something we have to tackle comprehensively,” she said.
Suiçmez said that they had to act in a calm manner and base their work on scientific data. “We should both address people’s safety concerns and delve into the root causes of the problem.”
“It is not correct to tie these only to children, their families, education and the judiciary system. In fact, they are all interconnected. This is something that should be tackled by several ministries, and a solution mechanism should involve harmony between different ministries,” she said.
Suiçmez noted that the issue was divisive as well. “We see social media campaigns and prejudiced people handing out their ‘verdicts,'” she lamented. “We have to come up with a solution appropriate to our judicial system,” she said. Suiçmez cited surveys highlighting that increasing sentences did not prevent new crimes. “Of course, the children should be held accountable for crimes they committed, but this issue should not be confined merely to sentencing. Children are born innocent, and we have to discuss everything that brought them to that level, from their family, the place where he/she raised, whether they had equal access to education and whether they had sufficient support from the state,” she underlined.
She said violence was on the rise across the world and the number of minors driven to crime also increased, adding that digital platforms played a role in promoting crimes. “Türkiye has sufficient sentencing for such crimes, though public perception is different,” she stressed.
“In recent years, sentences have been significantly increased, particularly for crimes such as violence against women and the abuse of children, but the problem is not the severity of the punishment. The problem is that the sentences imposed are effectively reduced in their execution through changes to enforcement laws. If sentences handed down not only to children pushed into crime but also in other offenses are served consistently and as required, the public perception of impunity would be dismantled,” she said.
She added that while authorities call for harsher penalties and longer detention to prevent children from being drawn into crime, at the same time, releasing individuals whose convictions are final under criminal law early by amending the Law on the Execution of Sentences creates, rightly or wrongly, a perception of impunity in society. “That is why everyone must be sincere. In Türkiye, there is no deficiency in criminal law or in the sentences themselves; the problem lies in their implementation,” she said.
Suiçmez said the number of children driven into crime could be reduced despite economic difficulties through stronger coordination among institutions, an increase in the number of social workers and psychologists, the provision of sufficient police forces and proper working conditions for them, and training for judges, prosecutors and police officers on the juvenile justice system.
The number of incidents involving children reported to or brought before security units in Türkiye rose significantly in 2024, reaching 612,651, an increase of 9.8% compared to the previous year, according to data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) last year.
The statistics reveal a broad picture of the reasons children interact with law enforcement across the country. Of the total cases, 279,620 children were identified as victims, while 202,785 were involved due to alleged criminal behavior, categorized as “children driven to crime.” Additionally, 96,438 children were questioned for informational purposes, 18,561 were reported missing and later found, 8,729 were involved in minor offenses, and 6,518 came to security units for other reasons not otherwise classified.
Among the children driven to crime, 40.4% were involved in assault-related incidents, 16.6% in theft and 8.2% in drug-related offenses, including use, sale or purchase of illegal substances. Other allegations included threats 4.6%, crimes creating general danger 4.2% and a wide array of other offenses accounting for 26% of the total.
Children who were victims represented 45.6% of the total number of cases. Of the 279,620 victimized children, 86.1% were victims of criminal acts, while the remaining 13.8% were involved in incidents requiring official follow-up but not necessarily categorized as crimes.
The most common offenses among child victims were assaults at 55.3%, followed by sexual crimes, 10.8%, human trafficking and migrant smuggling, 9.5%, family-related crimes at 8%, and other offenses, 16.5%.
Naci Şanlıtürk, member of the parliamentary committee for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), says the public was angered on sentence reduction for offenders below the age of 18. “If someone is aware that they committed a murder, even if he or she is below the age of 18, they should be tried on the same laws applying to adults,” he said.
Şanlıtürk pointed out different aspects of crimes committed by children. “We see bullying, football ultras forming criminal networks, we see sentence reductions serve as an incentive for children into crimes. On the other side, films and video games promote violence. We have to review those,” he said. Şanlıtürk says the family plays a central role in the life of a child, and they should reinforce laws to strengthen family bonds. He said their suggestions focused on mothers, such as paying monthly allowances to mothers-to-be without any social protection and payment of minimum wage for unemployed mothers of three.
Drawing attention to scenes of violence in television series and films, Şanlıtürk said movies and mafia-themed series must be closely scrutinized. “Films that glorify violence should be reviewed and not broadcast. When you look at the content of games, children sometimes do not even realize that what they are doing is a crime. They see it in society, on the internet, in films and in games. A comprehensive effort is needed to prevent this,” he said.
Emphasizing the need to stop criminal networks from exploiting children, Şanlıtürk said. “We must prevent criminal gangs from laying their hands on our children, we must break those hands. It is wrong to lure 15- and 16-year-olds into crime with money on the assumption that there will be sentence reductions. There is also strong public sensitivity on this issue,” he added.
