The Morgue as a Political Laboratory

The debate on the age of criminal responsibility requires evidence, institutional capacity, and victim support — not urgent responses without real ability to implement them.

The debate on the age of criminal responsibility requires evidence, institutional capacity.

The Argentine national government sent to Congress a bill aimed at lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 13, although the Minister of National Security has proposed reducing it to 12. The package of measures submitted by the Executive Branch is known as the New Juvenile Criminal Regime — the current one is 45 years old — and includes a new sentencing framework, alternative measures to prosecution, and special provisions to guarantee reparation of harm.

Discussions about the minimum age at which a person should be judged for their actions — under either an ordinary or juvenile criminal regime — are repetitive, monotonous, and notably lacking in political modernity: lowering the age of responsibility, increasing penalties, and creating new agencies to enforce sentences and ensure reintegration are proposals that reappear in every debate.

Around the world, this issue tends to re-enter public debate periodically, usually after a violent crime involving a minor. The need to discuss a new criminal regime for minors who commit offenses is one of the few points on which almost all political sectors represented in Congress seem to agree. But political behavior says far more than what can be read in the bills themselves.

The current opposition, which for several years held an elected majority in both legislative chambers, never opened the door to debate a new juvenile criminal regime. Instead, under a law promoted by dictator Rafael Videla in 1980, preference was given to implementing specific programs that depended exclusively on the will — and the funding — of the Executive Branch.

It is also important to note that in 2005 — without holding a congressional majority — the governing bloc succeeded in passing the Comprehensive Protection Law for the Rights of Children and Adolescents. Through it, the State expanded both its perspective and its scope of intervention regarding minors who commit crimes, moving from a purely police and judicial response toward broader public policy approaches. It was not enough.

What was the result of that policy? A very poor one. The juvenile criminal regime established during the last civil-military dictatorship, although later conditioned by the 2005 child protection law — invoking the “best interests of the child” recognized there — nevertheless continued to place minors inside a bureaucratic fog that reinforced pre-existing conditions of vulnerability.

The government and the political parties that support it promote the debate through the media by appealing — skillfully, though opportunistically — to public sensitivity and to the pain of victims of crimes committed by minors. Thin, slogan-like phrases such as “adult crime, adult time” or “guarantee-based justice is over in Argentina” condense the message about the punishment minors should receive.

This public display of argumentative narrowness does not align with several articles in the bill sent to Congress by the Executive Branch, which refer to new or reformed state agencies intended to support the comprehensive reintegration of convicted minors.

In the overwhelming majority of bill justifications, three elements are repeatedly invoked: the minimum age of criminal responsibility in neighboring countries; the best interests of the child; and the need for specialized institutions and agencies to deal with minors who commit crimes.

Old proposals resurrected whenever the morgue fills the headlines.

The Failed Example of the Neighbor

One of the mechanisms most often used to justify bills of this kind is to present another country’s experience as a model example. If the country belongs to the so-called First World, the example is framed positively; if it belongs to the Third World, the framing turns negative.

In Argentina’s case, however, an anomaly appears. The bills cite almost every country in the world to argue for a lower age of criminal responsibility and emphasize that Argentina — at 16 — holds the highest threshold in the region. These comparisons lack any solid foundation, not only in form but especially in outcomes.

In Latin America, the average age ranges between 7 and 12 in Caribbean countries and between 12 and 14 in the rest of the region. The lowest limits are found in Caribbean islands, mostly overseas territories of the United Kingdom or France. Mexico, Ecuador, and Brazil — countries with high levels of both common and complex crime — set the minimum age at 12. In the countries geographically closest to Argentina — Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, and Venezuela — the minimum age is 14.

The examples highlighted in these bills are quasi-mystical selections that do not withstand even minimal analytical scrutiny or the “common sense” so often praised in politics. The choices are driven by geographic proximity and reflex imitation.

Globally — and especially in Latin America — the number of minors involved remains high. According to UNICEF, more than 34,000 children and adolescents were detained in Latin America during 2024. The most alarming figure, however, is that 25,000 minors were homicide victims — exceeding even traffic-related deaths.

Countries such as Mexico, Ecuador, and Brazil, which set the minimum age at 12, and Colombia at 14, show the highest levels of minor participation in criminal offenses, reaching up to three times the continental average.

In these countries — and increasingly worldwide — there has been growth in the number of minors involved in complex criminal organizations dedicated to drug trafficking, human trafficking, kidnapping, and extortion. Why propose a measure that has produced no positive results anywhere? Reason does not supply the answer.

The Best Interests of the Child

A country’s judicial policy is not an island in the ocean. National and international political actors sometimes intervene quite openly to advance particular interests. In what resembles a toxic dynamic, the region both suffers and promotes U.S. influence in order to replicate its political models and practices in other countries, even when they sharply contradict local systems.

Examples include public defenses of private prison systems — as in the United States — the push to create specialized crime agencies modeled after the DEA, FBI, CIA, or Homeland Security, and similar moves in the debate over minimum age of criminal responsibility.

The incompatibility of importing closed U.S. models into Argentina should be recognized not only because of structural differences, but also because of the poor results those same policies have produced in the United States.

The United States has a federal system of government, meaning each state sets its own age of criminal responsibility; for example, Florida established it at seven years old. The data used to stammer out defenses of “made in USA” public policy should not be considered especially persuasive. While the number of minors detained has declined in recent years, violent crimes and complex organized crimes involving minors continue to rise steadily.

The national decline has been concentrated in property crimes — theft and burglary — and has not extended to more violent offenses. The United States maintains a homicide rate of around 6.7 per 100,000 people, while Argentina’s stands at about 3.7 per 100,000. Argentina records one of the lowest rates in the continent, and also one of the lowest in terms of crimes committed by minors under 16 — even though the trend is rising, particularly in participation in more complex criminal groups.

International obligations must also be considered. Argentina has constitutional and international commitments that the United States does not. The United States is the only country in the world — since Somalia ratified in 2015 — that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Although the Convention does not set a specific minimum age of criminal responsibility, the United Nations’ General Comment No. 24 (2019) urges States Parties to raise the minimum age to at least 14 and encourages countries such as Argentina to maintain it around 16. The Executive’s bill explicitly references the Convention, claiming alignment with its guiding principles and guarantees, yet says nothing about the contradiction involved in lowering the age below what is strongly recommended there.

The much-proclaimed “return to the world,” in this respect, seems aimed at a particularly failed one.

The State to Come — While the Existing One Is Dismantled

The bill agreed upon by the national government and allied blocs proposes creating a differentiated penal system, with specific sanctions and new educational, social, health, and reintegration structures for minors who commit crimes. Yet it reads largely as a set of empty promises unlikely to be implemented.

The central question — and one that generates deep distrust about the bill’s real objectives — is where the funding will come from to build this new regime. Especially since the government has repeatedly stated it would veto any law that does not identify its financing sources.

The bill lists a series of obligations for minors receiving conditional sentences — that is, those not deprived of liberty — conditions they must meet to avoid revocation and imprisonment.

The institutions now being proposed already existed, but were shut down or severely defunded, including community support centers. Hundreds of specialized addiction-treatment professionals were dismissed, and subsidy and grant amounts for treatment and housing programs were left unadjusted, among many other measures.

The proposal now states that interdisciplinary teams will supervise and evaluate convicted minors, requiring them to attend educational and civic training programs, participate in sports and cultural activities, undergo medical or psychological treatment, obtain employment within a set timeframe, and abstain from alcohol and drugs.

It also proposes appointing a specialized supervisor for each minor, responsible for weekly interviews, monthly reports, and addressing personal or environmental difficulties. It appears paradoxical to promote a “present state” while governing from a right-wing perspective in which the state is never large enough — except for punitive policy.

For minors who must serve prison sentences, the bill proposes specialized facilities — which do not exist — or separate sectors within adult prisons. Current prison reality makes this materially unfeasible. With overcrowding around 10 percent in the federal system alone, inmates already stack up just to sleep. Heavenly forces, so far, do not override physics.

Everything suggests the coming congressional debate will be a poor one, yet as much information and sensitivity as possible must be contributed to steer it toward a better outcome. The State must punish those who commit crimes, whether adults or minors — but it must also consider the consequences of measures that lack reasonable grounding.

The current justice, prison, and social systems lack nearly all the tools and spaces required to implement the proposed regime. Nor does the bill create new mechanisms to accompany victims, despite repeatedly invoking their pain.

In his book Leaving the Night, Italian journalist Mario Calabresi investigates the murder of his father — a police officer killed by a left-wing terrorist group in the 1970s — and recounts its consequences for his family. He writes that many relatives and friends of victims are overwhelmed by a sense of neglect, indifference, and institutional coldness — and that genuine presence would ease at least part of their pain.