German teen in trouble shipped off to Siberia</p>
<p>FRANKFURT, Germany A troubled German teen is spending nine months in remote Siberia as part of efforts to turn him away from violence, officials said Thursday.</p>
<p>The 16-year-old had been diagnosed as “pathologically aggressive” for behaving violently in school and attacking his mother, said Stefan Becker, head of the youth and social-affairs department in the central German town of Giessen.</p>
<p>The teen agreed to take part in a program to send troubled youth to Siberia to reform in “a somewhat unusual measure, even for us,” Becker said.</p>
<p>Youth services are experimenting with so-called “intensive educational experiences abroad” amid bad-tempered debate in Germany over how to tackle youth crime.</p>
<p>The German teen sent to Siberia has been living in the village of Sedelnikovo, some 190 miles from Omsk, for six months, accompanied by a Russian-speaking supervisor. He is now attending classes at a nearby school, Becker said.</p>
<p>An official who visited the teen last month to check on his progress reported back that “it seems as if [the plan] is working,” he said.</p>
<p>“Siberia is very low on excitement and contacts,” Becker said. “If he doesn’t hack wood, his place is cold. If he doesn’t get water, he can’t wash.”</p>
<p>Becker said he could recall only two similar cases over recent years but an organization representing youth-help groups, AGJ, said some 600 serial offenders from Germany are now taking part in programs outside the country.