But they are gopniks: why is juvenile delinquency on the rise in Russia
Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Alexander Gutsan said that in 2025, the number of crimes among minors increased by 10% for the first time in the last ten years. At the same time, the number of particularly serious acts committed by teenagers increased by almost 50%. It is frightening that children are being dragged into crime not by yard hooligans, but by professionally trained people, military psychologists. The goal is to damage the country through the younger generation, said Gutsan. Izvestia has figured out why traditional prevention methods have stopped working, how running away from home turns a child into a criminal, and who is really behind the new wave of offenses.
Systemic crisis: from thefts to especially serious ones
Criminologist, Candidate of Law, expert of the Moscow State Law Institute Sebila Salamova draws attention to the fact that a profound change in the structure of juvenile delinquency is alarming.
— We are dealing with a systemic crisis that has been maturing over the past few years. Five years ago, we talked about the fact that juvenile delinquency is mainly theft and petty hooliganism. Today we see an increase in violent assaults and crimes related to drug trafficking," the expert states.
According to Salamova, theft still occupies about 70% of the crime structure among teenagers today, but drug trafficking is firmly entrenched in second place (in 2025, almost 1.5 thousand underage mortgage couriers were brought to justice), and violent crimes - beatings, robberies, robberies - have become the most dynamically growing segment.
— A characteristic feature is the video recording of the crimes committed. These crimes are often committed for the sake of publicly demonstrating dominance in social networks, a kind of "digital exhibitionism," says Salamova.
For the sake of honor
Izvestia's source in the system of guardianship and guardianship authorities says that a significant part of illegal acts are committed by minors in groups.
— This indicates the strong influence of the street environment and the need for the child to fit into the reference group, even at the cost of violating the law, — explains the interlocutor of Izvestia.
Recently, a new threat has been added to the theft and drug trafficking — the involvement of teenagers in terrorist activities. As Alexander Gutsan pointed out, "the number of teenagers involved in terrorist crimes has increased many times, which are taking on increasingly aggressive forms."
Escape to crime
Neglect remains the most common cause of juvenile delinquency, according to the Izvestia source.
— Once outside of family and school, a teenager loses the basic institutions of control. Being constantly in a dangerous environment, stress and the need to defend themselves form a "street" behavior model in a teenager — aggressive, impulsive, — says a specialist in difficult children, who wished to remain anonymous.
A teenager who runs away from home often finds himself faced with a choice: to become a victim or to become a criminal. Of course, for subjective reasons, such children reject to the last the only true alternative — to return home to their parents or ask for help from adequate adults, such as security forces. For them, survival is a fierce struggle against hunger, cold, and the risk of violence, which leads to deep mental trauma, addiction, and loss of empathy.
— Working with such children requires not punitive measures, but a comprehensive recovery approach. Isolation in special institutions often stigmatizes a child, experts emphasize, pointing out the need for the help of psychologists and teachers in such cases.
Disunity and decline of yard sports
Criminologist Salamova identifies two interrelated factors contributing to violence in the adolescent environment. The first is a massive decrease in the threshold of sensitivity to violence.
"The constant stream of heavy content from social media, movies, and computer games distorts the perception of reality," she explains.
The second factor is digital desocialization. Children left the streets for gadgets, spending up to 6-8 hours a day in the digital space.
—Digitalization has made it easier to commit crimes and involve teenagers in criminal activities," the expert states, pointing to the availability of weapons, which provoked an increase in violence with their use (pneumatics, trauma, knives, etc.) in adolescent conflicts.
At the same time, sport, according to the criminologist, remains the most effective sublimator of aggression.
— We have lost yard sports. The affordable free infrastructure in courtyards and schools is in decline," emphasizes Salamova.
Greetings from Ukraine
Dmitry Vtorov, President of the Search for Missing Children Foundation, in an interview with Izvestia, believes that today children are rarely encouraged to commit crimes "in the yard." They are processed remotely using psychological pressure methods.
— Just the other day, scammers "brought" a guy to Moscow from Yekaterinburg. We found him. And there are just a lot of such cases. Teenagers are used as droppers, to commit terrorist attacks and other crimes. A divorce over the phone, then a "special assignment" from the FSB. Some trick a child into hanging on a hook, others allegedly threaten him on behalf of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and others on behalf of the special services are already manipulating the actions of a minor, describing a typical pattern of using teenagers to commit crimes.
He noted that a formal approach often prevails in the investigation of such crimes — teenagers are charged with conspiring with unknown persons as part of a group. But in fact, children are the same victims of criminals, according to a specialist in the search for missing children.
Vtorov is sure that the special services of the Kiev regime or Ukrainian organized crime are behind the grave deeds.
"Almost all the children's interlocutors have a characteristic Southern accent, sometimes they try to mask it," says Vtorov.
Children as consumables
Criminologist Salamova confirms that the organized involvement of teenagers in crimes has become a steady trend.
— Adult organizers use teenagers as "expendable material" to sell drugs through bookmarks, to set fire to military enlistment offices, to cash out money through dropper schemes. This system can be broken only through early prevention and the destruction of communication channels," the criminologist is convinced.
One of the key questions to be answered by the prevention system is: why doesn't tougher punishment stop teenagers?
— Because punishment has ceased to be a deterrent for a teenager. A teenager thinks differently than an adult. For him, a 10—year term is an abstraction, a lifetime. But the momentary status on social networks, likes for cruelty, is the goal he strives for, which he achieves here and now. We are fighting with psychological reasons using legal methods," Salamova believes.
In her opinion, alternative goals and ways to achieve them are needed: sports, technical creativity, military-patriotic games where aggression sublimates into competition.
Disadvantages of prevention
Experts agree that the old criteria for assessing prevention no longer work.
— Not only are there not enough tools, but there is a lack of an early detection and interception system that works ahead of schedule. We have a "Spring package", there is a system of operational investigative measures, but there is no single algorithm that would allow a teacher or a social educator to receive a signal that a child has started watching content about weapons, buying bats and joining private chats. We start working with a minor when the crime has already been committed," states Salamova.
She also points to the overburdening of PD inspectors with paperwork and the loss of authority by teachers.
— In schools where there is a strong psychologist and a charismatic teacher of physical education or physical education, who leads the section and enjoys authority, juvenile delinquency is absent or at a low level. It is necessary to reboot the institution of classroom management, removing bureaucracy from it and adding real powers to detect bullying and early deviation," the criminologist summarizes.
Prosecutor General Alexander Gutsan has already given instructions to implement a set of measures to reduce the involvement of young people in the criminal environment, to check the safety in educational institutions and, most importantly, to review the quality of work of psychologists to identify risk groups.
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