02/08/2007

Truant Does Time

German Girl Jailed for Skipping School

Some kids hate school, some kids skip school, but it seems one young lady hates school so much she'd rather spend time in jail. After refusing to pay a fine or do community service for truancy, the 16-year-old German now faces the delights of two weeks in a prison cell.

DPA

A 16-year-old girl has been sentenced to two weeks in jail for skipping school.

For parents of rebellious teenagers, the idea of sending their unruly offspring for a spell in the slammer must sometimes seems attractive. Now that fate has become reality for one teenage truant in Germany.

A 16-year-old girl in Görlitz in the eastern German state of Saxony has been sentenced to two weeks in prison for playing truant from school. After the wilful teenager refused to do community service or accept that she has to attend school, she was sentenced by a district court to a spell in jail. The teenage rebel will serve her time this summer.

The schoolgirl, who stayed away from school for almost a month without being excused, had refused several opportunities to avoid doing time. Authorities in Görlitz said they had tried to fine the girl's family three times but they had refused to pay, claiming they have no influence over their daughter and are incapable of forcing her to go to school.

The authorities then decided to turn the fine into 37 hours of community service, but the stubborn school kid just wasn’t cooperating. The only option left was to order a "disobedience arrest." On Dec. 13, she appeared before the district court in Görlitz and was sentenced to two weeks in jail, to be served this summer.

When confronted with her misdeeds the adolescent showed no remorse. The judge in the case, Andreas Pech, told the Associated Press that when the girl appeared in court, she still refused to accept the necessity of attending school and blamed her absence from class on her teachers. He said the girl would have to be shown quite clearly how serious her situation was.

Saxony's Green Party criticised the sentencing as being excessive. "I wonder what the schoolgirl is supposed to learn in jail?" said Astrid Günther-Schmidt, educational spokesperson for the regional parliamentary party. She pointed out that the law is usually applied to the parents in cases of school truancy. "If the parents, as the legal guardians, refuse to pay the fines, then they have to bear the consequences," she said.

It's not the first time the town of Görlitz has resorted to this harsh measure. Last year the district court sentenced two schoolboys to jail time in another truant crackdown.

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