Eastern Province police said the murder rate among minors between the ages of 11 to 18 years old is low.

A spokesman for the Eastern Province police, Lt. Ziad Al-Riqaiti refused to put murders among minors under the category of “a widespread phenomenon in society”, pointing out that these cases are very few compared to criminal cases among adults.

“Juveniles of both sexes, male and female, who are accused of a murder case or any other criminal case shall be referred to the social observation home if male while the girls shall be referred to the girls’ home where they will be interrogated in accordance with regulations and procedures,” Al-Riqaiti said in a statement.

He attributed the majority of the causes of murder among this age group to revenge, accidental killing and other reasons.

“Motives behind murders are difficult to quantify,” he added.

Lawyer Majed Garoub agreed. He believes that murder rates among Saudi citizens is relatively low, putting juvenile cases on the low.

Nevertheless, the precise answer lies in the statistics issued by the security authorities.

“The bulk of murder cases in the Kingdom are due to accidental killings, which is mostly because of family honor or amateur quarrels, all of which fall under the penalty of involuntary manslaughter. This is unlike premeditated murder, in which the murderer has motive and has planned to kill beforehand,” Garoub pointed out.

Garoub attributed the reasons to commit this type of crime to social, educational and cultural factors and the home environment, as well as the influence of the media on children and the effects of animated films that contain violent scenes with the absence of family supervision.

“Any negative phenomenon in society is the result of failures and malfunctions by more than one party of the community, first and foremost the family and household,” he said.

“Blaming the media in this regard is not justified because a family stands responsible for monitoring what their children watch,” Garoub said.