Argentina's lower house backs bill to lower age of criminal responsibility

Lower house deputies on Thursday approved a bill reducing the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 14, a proposal backed by President Javier Milei’s government which must now be debated in the Senate.

The bill, which received 149 votes in favour and 100 against in the Lower House, would amend the country’s juvenile justice system dating back to 1980.

The initiative was backed by the La Libertad Avanza, UCR, PRO, Innovación Federal, Provincias Unidas, Encuentro Federal, Coalición Cívica and Producción y Trabajo caucuses and rejected by the Peronists and the left.

The special juvenile regime proposed by the government offers a range of alternative sanctions to prison while establishing that underaged convicts must not mix with adults in confinement. It includes complementary measures of resocialisation.

The bill rules out life imprisonment, fixing a maximum prison sentence of 15 years for juvenile delinquents with no prison for sentences under three years. Other kinds of sanctions with a social and educational focus are given priority for sentences between three and 10 years for crimes which have not resulted in death or grievous bodily harm.

Also incorporated is a change demanded by the moderate opposition: effective financing of the new system by assigning over 23 billion pesos (around US$16.5 million at the official exchange rate) to it.

The reform the government took to debate in the chamber was based on a file dated July 15, 2024 and not the text which was sent to Congress last Monday – a decision made by the government after detecting that fixing the age of criminal responsibility at 13 did not have the support of its allies. Consensus was reached on a threshold of 14, as in a committee recommendation issued last year.

Apart from lowering the age from 16 to 14, the maximum sentence is reduced from 20 to 15 years with such alternatives to prison as house arrest, community work, a ban on driving or economic reparations.

The moderate opposition remarked that an age of 14 falls within the parameters established by international treaties on the rights of children enjoying constitutional status.

Argentina currently has the highest age of criminal responsibility in South America, where in most countries it is set at 14. Brazil and Ecuador have the lowest age, at 12.

Under international standards, the minimum age of criminal responsibility is the age below which a child cannot be held criminally liable for their actions and therefore cannot be prosecuted.

The governing coalition conducted an extensive media campaign led by former security minister, Senator Patricia Bullrich, under the slogan “adult crime, adult punishment.”

“If a person encounters someone who has decided to hurt them, to harm them or to kill them, at 14 they understand that this is wrong and that there must be consequences. That is called a crime,” ruling party lawmaker Ramiro Gutiérrez said while defending the bill.

The UCR National Committee, chaired by Leonel Chiarella, announced Thursday that it would support the bill, releasing a communiqué to say that it was fundamental that Congress sanction “this legal instrument to guarantee justice for the victims and encourage adolescents to take responsibility for their actions.”

“The Unión Cívica Radical maintains a historic and consistent position: a modern and federal  penal juvenile régime is necessary with clear rules and effective guarantees,” expressed the party chaired by Chiarella.

 

Opposition

However, opposition lawmakers criticised the government for fast-tracking the bill through committee, where some experts – including children’s rights advocates from several provinces – spoke out against the reform. They also questioned the timeframe for adapting prison facilities before the law comes into force, as well as the allocated budget, which they deemed insufficient.

“The entire political system should work to ensure that this happens only in exceptional cases, yet here we see those promoting an Argentina that dismantles public structures bringing forward a ‘prison and bullets’ debate as a response to the problems of poor children and adolescents who did not find a State that provided what they needed,” Peronist MP Victoria Tolosa Paz said during the debate.

The debate is taking place at a time of heightened public sensitivity over crimes committed by adolescents that have received extensive media coverage.

The most recent case occurred last December in Santa Fe Province, when two teenagers aged 14 and 15 tortured and fatally stabbed another 15-year-old, Jeremías Monzón, after ambushing him in an abandoned warehouse with the help of a 16-year-old girl, the only person arrested for the homicide.

On Wednesday, the parents of the murdered boy and other relatives of victims of juvenile offenders gathered outside Congress to call for the approval of a new juvenile criminal law that would allow punishment in similar cases.

The law and order agenda pushed by the Milei administration enjoys overwhelming social consensus in early 2026. According to a recent survey, over 73 percent of Argentines agree with lowering the age of criminal responsibility to combat juvenile delinquency.

The "Informe Público" report by Giacobbe pollsters gives details on majority support for hardline stances: 63.6 percent of respondents agreed with lowering the age to 13, while 9.5 percent would accept 14. Only 20.1 percent of those surveyed would prefer to maintain the current limit of 16.

Deputy Victoria Tolosa Paz (Unión por la Patria-Buenos Aires Province) questioned the government bill, calling for a ”more serious approach with less marketing and slogans” when tackling the problem of teenage crime. She laid into Bullrich for installing “a campaign of marketing.”

“It might serve for an electoral campaign but it is far removed from what we have to do with the responsibility of taking this country forward,” he underlined.

Earlier this week, the Catholic Church’s Pastoral Social and Pastoral Prison work teams and the Cáritas Argentina charity, which belongs to the Argentine Synod, published an open letter to deputies in relation to the bill, highlighting that the debate is unfolding “in a political climate where the use of social grief with aims of media impact predominates" and calling for a debate without “electoral opportunism or manipulation of social discontent.”

Church leaders have voiced opposition to the move.

 

‘Recidivism’

During debate, Frente de Izquierda leftist national deputy Romina del Plá warned that the new system for juveniles would send them to “horrible places” where "none of those kids will come out better than they went in."

“The rates of recidivism for kids lodged in prisons are extremely high in every country because instead of policies of reinsertion, confinement is a policy to make their situations worse,” argued the Partido Obrero deputy.

“Not only are you voting for a measure to increase the persecution of our kids but you are voting to destine the funding to prisons while withdrawing it from all the areas there are to protect childhood in a context of poverty and brutal austerity," she indicated.

Del Plá warned that "the only thing achieved by lowering the age to 14 is that the drug-trafficking gangs will start recruiting among kids of 10, 11 and 12," concluding: "This law does not resolve any problem but tosses children into the bonfire.”

Laura Rodríguez Machado, who chairs the Penal Legislation Committee, maintained that the intention is not “to pile up the underaged in prisons” but “resocialise them.”

"That is what is happening except in some provinces with very particular norms. The current régime which many do not want to amend ever permits the adoption of vague and restrictive measures,” lamented the Córdoba deputy.

Encuentro Federal deputy Miguel Pichetto indicated "agreement with lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 14" although he permitted himself “to doubt that the government will give this law a budget.”

As he understood it, “the funds assigned by the [2026] Budget are insignificant,” detailing that “every square metre of a prison costs around US$7,000 to construct.”

“We face an ancient and circular debate in Argentina, similar to the labour reforms which always appear every time there is a non-Peronist government,” analysed Pichetto.

Peronist deputy Juan Grabois assured his government counterparts that if they wanted to lower the age of criminal responsibility to “zero,” they should go ahead because the basic problem, in reality, is “the previous situation of children and adolescents” linked to mental health and drug consumption.

“They can lower the age to zero if they like because it’s a false dichotomy. The problem is how to tackle criminal behaviour in children and adolescents which has to be via their previous situation involving mental health and drug consumption. When you lose a kid to paco [cocaine paste], the state must have the tools to send him to a health centre and that does not exist. They [the government and its aligned caucuses] say so.But they did not introduce a Mental Health Law into the extraordinary sessions because it does not interest them, they are liars deceiving the people,” he concluded.
 

 

– TIMES/AFP/NA