On lowering the age of criminal responsibility – is Argentina legislating in a mood of violent emotion?

Last December, at least one minor participated in the murder of 15-year-old Jeremías Monzón in Santa Fe. The victim’s corpse was found in a shed in the vicinity of the Club Colón sports grounds. An autopsy revealed Monzón had been stabbed more than 20 times.

The accused perpetrators are aged between 14 and 17, among them Jeremías’ former girlfriend, who was reportedly afraid that an intimate video may be shared publicly. The girl, age 16, is being held at a Special Juvenile Detention Centre. The teen’s mother was also arrested.

The murder of Monzón, which was reportedly filmed, shocked Argentine society, with the political world picking up the gauntlet. This week, the Executive Branch published Decree 53/2026 ordering the inclusion of “bills linked to the Juvenile Criminal Code”on the agenda of the extraordinary sessions of Congress starting next Monday. The decree bears the signatures of President Javier Milei and Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni.

The previous day Adorni had anticipated in a message posted on his X social media account that the bill would be included in extraordinary sessions, with Senate La Libertad Avanza caucus chief Patricia Bullrich sharing the message. She wrote: “Society needs justice and to prevent new victims. Without consequences, there is freedom to commit crime.”

During the Congress debate, “we will clearly see who is on the side of the Argentines and who continues defending the criminals,” incited Bullrich.

The former security minister had already anticipated the news on January 23 in another social media post: “We’re going for the same standards as our neighbours: an earlier age of criminal responsibility, specialised judges and differentiated punishments. Impunity on the grounds of age is over.”

Questions of maturity

Interviewed last Tuesday by the Urbana Play radio station, Córdoba judge (Tribunal Oral Federal 2) María Noel Costa questioned the renewed push to lower the age of crimal responsibility.

“You might say Argentina is legislating in a mood of violent emotion,” said the magistrate, who recalled the Supreme Court’s “Maldonado” ruling (signed by justices other than the present) highlighting that “the emotional maturity of an adolescent is not the same as that of an adult.”

Costa indicated that the Supreme Court, with the signatures of Justices Horacio Rosatti, Ricardo Lorenzetti and Carlos Rosenkrantz, ratified the “Maldonado” ruling in another sentence. 

For the Córdoba judge, it should be about “seeking complementary alternatives” to locking up adolescents.

In an interview with Perfil, constitutional lawyer Andrés Gil Domínguez recalled that the current juvenile criminal code dates back to 1980, when Argentina was led by a military junta was headed by the dictator Jorge Rafael Videla. 

At that time the age at which an adolescent could be indicted was 14, an age that rose to 16 with the return of democracy in 1983, but despite the rulings from Argentina’s Supreme Court and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordering the change, the norm was never amended integrally but only partially.

“The government bill wants to restore the age of criminal responsibility imposed by Videla during a dictatorship,” remarked Gil Domínguez.

Using data to back his case, he highlighted that according to the statistics of Buenos Aires Province (the country’s most populous region), only 2.5 percent of crimes were committed by those aged under 16, with most of them classified as crimes against property, not violent crimes such as homicides.

“We do not have any massive problem of the underaged committing heinous crimes, yet the case of Jeremías Monzón in Santa Fe made an impact,” admitted Gil Domínguez.

“The aim of the juvenile criminal code should be to generate introspection in the boy or girl regarding their offence and if thought is only given to the effects of punishing at that age, this is contrary to the higher interests of the child,” said the constitutional lawyer. 

For Gil Domínguez, the government’s decision to debate this issue in extraordinary sessions has to do with “political opportunism.”

“They seek to make society discuss this issue in order to pass the labour reform,” he speculated

‘Necessary’

In an interview with Perfil, a Buenos Aires Province criminal judge considered that “the reform is necessary,” but said that the most important thing will be to define what happens to those under 13 who may also commit crimes.

The magistrate, who requested anonymity to speak freely, remarked that the courts would have to be able to work on those youngsters before they regain their liberty.

“Now kids are regaining their liberty perhaps even before the stolen car is recovered,” he maintained: “The government is not doing badly in Congress so they are accelerating” the times to debate this reform.

“An adolescent passing through the penal system is marked for life and his reinsertion into society is very difficult. The proposal does not provide any accompaniment nor forms of reinsertion to prevent conflictive conduct nor strategies to avoid recidivism,” underlined CELS.

The human rights group highlighted a UNICEF report pointing out that there is no evidence to demonstrate that lowering the age of criminal responsibility has a favourable impact on overall safety for the population. 

Argentina, whose age of criminal responsibility starts at 16, averages five homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, well below other countries in the region. Brazil and Mexico average 23 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants (according to 2023) with an age of criminal responsibility of 12.

    bProsecutor Mónica Cuñarro has questioned the financing of the initiative,, remarking that other such reforms had been discussed in the past without determining how to finance educational measures and others contributing to resocialisation and human resources.

The prosecutor, who specialises in the underaged and is a UBA (Universidad de Buenos Aires) lecturer, warned that “if the bill departs from the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it will be unconstitutional.” 

For the judicial official, this kind of initiative for increasing punishment and sanctioning special laws without funding is linked to “punitive populism” with similar proposals in countries like Cuba, Venezuela or China.

“Without funding and a technique which respects the Convention ]on the Rights of the Child, it would be a typical marketing spot.”