According to data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), the number of children who were brought to police stations increased by 10 percent in 2016 over the previous year.
Out of 333,435 children who were brought to police stations, 54.8 were between 15-17 years old, 23.2 percent were between 12-14 years old and 21.9 percent were under the age of 11. A total of 65.4 percent of the children were boys and 34.6 percent were girls.
A total of 47.5 percent of the children were victims while 32.6 percent of them allegedly did something that is legally defined as a crime. Some 12.3 percent of the children were brought to a police station for information, 3.5 percent of them were missing and 4.1 percent were brought for other reasons.
Among 108,675 children who were brought to police stations due to committing a crime, 36.1 percent were accused of harming someone, 23.1 percent were involved in theft, 5.5 percent were using, selling or buying drugs, 3.5 percent were accused of sexual crimes, 3.4 percent were charged with damaging property and 3.3 percent were involved in issuing threats.
While 69.4 percent of the children were returned to their families, 19.5 percent were referred to court and 2.8 percent of the children were sent to social institutions.