The 16-year-old boy has various problems including ADHD and autism and functions emotionally like a toddler and has an unstable home situation, according to the juvenile judge. The boarding school where the teenager is staying has been sounding the alarm for weeks, but no suitable solution has been found for the boy. That is why he has been in a police cell since Monday evening. According to the juvenile court, the boy in question can only receive the necessary care in a community institution, but according to the Growing Up Agency, there is currently no place there, explains Luk Versteylen, spokesperson for the Antwerp juvenile judges, in ‘Gazet van Antwerpen’.
A new decree also ensures that from September children from a disturbing parenting situation can only go to specialized care in private facilities. The community institutions then only receive young people who have committed an offense described as a crime. The intention of this new decree is to prevent perpetrators and victims from being forced to stay together in a community institution, although critics fear that it will lead to even more lack of space.
“Surely it cannot be the intention that the Public Prosecution Service is looking for something to criminalize this boy with disabilities so that he can still be sent to a community institution?” Denoyelle wonders.