The Argentine government is pushing for Congress to debate their bill to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 13 years old. Defense Minister Luis Petri spoke out in favor of the proposal over the weekend, but the Catholic Church and a segment of the opposition have said it would not address the causes of crime committed by young people.

Deputies will address the issue during a commission meeting on Tuesday, in which they are expected to analyze 15 bills on youth crime and agree on a single document for debate on the chamber’s floor.

Among those proposals is one filed by the government in June 2024, which initially aimed for the threshold to be lowered to 13. However, some media have reported that the government has agreed with part of the opposition for the threshold to be 14 years old, instead. 

“We can’t continue with this system in which a teenager commits a violent crime and leaves families completely adrift after losing a relative,” Petri told news channel TN on Sunday night.

He said he believed the age of responsibility needed to be lower than 14, but that he encouraged lawmakers to move forward if they reached consensus around that age.

Petri added that if a 15-year-old “can understand the criminality of their actions, they have to be tried and convicted” and said that current legislation denies victims “the possibility of justice.” 

The issue of violent crime committed by young people has been in the limelight in recent months because of cases including the death of Kim Gómez, a seven-year-old girl who was killed when two teenagers aged 14 and 17 stole her mother’s car at a stoplight.

While most cooperative opposition parties back the initiative and have even filed similar bills themselves, there’s partial resistance among the Peronist party Unión por la Patria (UxP), the largest bloc in the Lower House, which firmly opposes the government. 

Some UxP lawmakers have filed bills that aim for the age of criminal responsibility to remain the same but provide more rights and guarantees to those who are arrested. Others, however, have filed bills to lower it to 14.

UxP Deputy Daniel Arroyo told the Herald: “I think before debating the age of criminal responsibility we need to create a Youth Criminal System, reorganize the minors’ institutions, work on inserting young people in the labor market, and declare an emergency on addiction.”

“If not, it is just a punitive measure without any real changes to the system,” said Arroyo, who will vote against the government’s proposal if it reaches the house floor. 

Some in the Catholic Church have also expressed concern on the matter. La Rioja Bishop Dante Braida, head of the Catholic Social Pastoral Commission, told Infobae that lowering the age of criminal responsibility would not be sufficient because “putting a child in a situation of confinement will not solve the root problem.”

“We don’t believe in a penal solution, but rather in offering instances of recovery and prevention,” Braida said. “What these kids need is opportunities.”