On Lowering the Age of Criminal Responsibility in Argentina:
This Isn’t Justice, It’s Political PunishmentI feel like I’ve said this before. But seeing how the debate around lowering the age of criminal responsibility is still alive in my country, I have no choice but to speak up again. And this time, I’m angry. Because honestly, it’s exhausting. Watching how social pain is manipulated to push a punitive agenda that solves nothing.
Right now, in Argentina, the age of criminal responsibility is 16. And they want to lower it.
Do people seriously believe this will reduce crime? Do they truly think that putting 12- or 13-year-olds in prison will make our society safer? That’s not justice. That’s institutionalized stigma. That’s exclusion at an even earlier age.
Do we even realize what our prisons are like in Argentina? In Latin America in general? They’re places where violence multiplies. These are not spaces of rehabilitation — they are factories of marginalization. And I’m not just talking about violence among inmates. I'm talking about systemic abuse from prison staff too. Even juvenile detention centers are marked by neglect, repression, and trauma.
Sending a minor to prison is condemning them to a life even more marginal than the one that led them to commit a crime in the first place. A criminal trial leaves a mark. Society pre-judges you. Employers reject you. Relationships fall apart. Reintegration becomes an uphill battle. In the end, you’re just thrown back into a reality that’s even more hostile than before.
I understand the anger. It’s valid. Insecurity is real, and it hurts. But that anger is being used. The media and politicians feed on it, exploit it, and turn it into political fuel. But not to protect us — to reinforce a system that always targets the same people: the poor, the excluded, the disposable. Prisons are full of them.
Eugenio Zaffaroni, a great Argentine jurist, saw this clearly: criminal law doesn’t solve conflicts, doesn’t restore, doesn’t repair. It instrumentalizes. Both the victim and the accused.
The penal system, as it stands, is not about justice. It’s about control.
And when it comes to kids and teenagers, that control becomes even crueler.
Behind juvenile crime, there is abandonment, exclusion, lack of opportunity, a broken education system, hunger, rage.
This isn’t about justifying crime. It’s about understanding the context. About building real solutions. Not prisons.
