The Argentine Lower House reached a consensus on a first draft of a bill that aims to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 14, an initiative backed by the government. The move allows for the proposal to be debated and voted on in a future session.

The proposal was initially filed in Congress by Security Minister Patricia Bullrich and Defense Minister Luis Petri last June. It initially included lowering the threshold to 13, however, the government made a compromise to raise it to 14. This was so that the Milei administration could achieve the necessary backing from allied opposition parties to reach the approval of the final draft during a commissions meeting on Tuesday.

Including the government’s, there were 15 bill drafts on the table, some proposing alternative measures to combat youth crime instead of lowering the threshold. However, the government’s initiative received the most support, with 77 signatures from ruling party La Libertad Avanza (LLA), close ally Propuesta Republicana (PRO), Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) and Coalición Cívica.

Aside from lowering the age of legal responsibility to 14, the bill proposes carrying out other punitive instances before putting teens in jail, such as community service, restriction orders or damage reparation. Jail-time would be ordered for sentences of 10 years or more, with 15 years being the maximum possible sentence. This means it would only be applied for serious crimes.

If approved, minors would be locked up in special institutions separated from adults, where staff would have to be trained to deal with adolescents. They would also have to guarantee education, medical care and substance abuse treatments.

Three other bills reached a minority number of signatures that allows them to also be addressed in a session. One, from the Peronist coalition Unión por la Patria, contemplated keeping the threshold at 16 years old but proposed other instances for teens to comply with their sentence with jail as a last resort. Another from Frente de Izquierda outright rejected any changes to the regulations. 

In an X post, the Justice Ministry celebrated the move saying that the bill is “a great debt” from the legislative power to “combat security problems and give the judiciary the tools to put criminals in jail.”

“It is simple, those who are old enough to kill or rape are old enough to assume the consequences of their actions and go to jail.”

https://x.com/MinJusticia_Ar/status/1919851166361649314 
During the commissions meeting, Encuentro Federal deputy Margarita Stolbizer, whose draft bill to keep the age threshold at 16 got a minority number of signatures, raised her concern on whether there is “enough money” to build and operate institutions for young criminals. “There are very few possibilities that this will guarantee the results it is aiming for. No age threshold will solve these problems,” she said, according to Herald sister publication Ámbito.