The age of criminal responsibility

The rate of crimes committed by minors in Brazil is alarming, especially in Salvador, where the numbers clearly show the involvement of children and adolescents in assaults, robberies, thefts, homicides, and drug trafficking. Statistical data from the Bahia Public Security Secretariat indicate that the number of homicides committed by adolescents has increased by 117% in the last five years. This year alone, we have already had a large number of crimes involving minors.

Recently, we had the case of the young woman killed in Stella Maris by a minor who wanted to rob her to buy drugs. Every day, when we open the newspapers, we read news of crimes involving minors who, under the influence of drugs, act with more violence than adults, since they are well aware of the lenient sentences they will receive if apprehended.

Criminals recruit minors to commit crimes as a way to escape responsibility. There is an agreement among gang members for the minor to take the blame for more serious acts, so that the adult receives a lighter sentence. Since the minor is apprehended and sent to a rehabilitation center for a maximum of three years, they end up taking the blame for the crime.

When apprehended, they immediately shout "I'm a minor, doctor!" and, most of the time, they don't carry documents proving their age. But, since they are protected by the Statute of Children and Adolescents (ECA), it's best not to risk touching them and to give them the benefit of the doubt until the facts are ascertained.

What can we do to end the problem that is claiming the lives of people who are victims of these minors, and the lives of these minors themselves? We need more investment in security and, above all, in education, carrying out a broad reform of the educational system so that these minors remain in school full-time. Children in school will not have idle time to be recruited by criminals.

But that alone doesn't solve the problem. I am in favor of reducing the age of criminal responsibility from the current eighteen to twelve years, with harsher penalties. This would significantly inhibit crime committed by them. There is much discussion today on the subject, and politicians are against this reduction because there hasn't been a high-profile crime involving someone from their family.

What's the point of apprehending a minor and placing them in a rehabilitation center, abandoned to their own fate? Contrary to what we think, this minor leaves there worse than when they entered. They are mistreated, tortured, sodomized, and who knows what else happens inside. There is also a school of thought that defends maintaining the current age of criminal responsibility, because if it were reduced, minors would be placed in prisons along with dangerous criminals and could become a "school" there. Why not build a prison just to house minors aged 12 to 18?

What we cannot do is close our eyes to such a serious problem; we need to save our young people from such a sad fate, because when they are not apprehended, they are murdered very young. At the rate this is the death toll of children and adolescents, who will lead this country in the future?

Some judges in the interior have already imposed a curfew for minors between 13 and 17 years old, who can only remain on the streets until 23 PM. This helps to minimize the problem, but only with proper education, the inclusion of these minors in sports, and the provision of vocational training courses will we be able to cut this evil at its root. Do politicians have an interest in this? May God help us!