Milei pushes for Penal Code reform to increase penalties and lower the age of criminal responsibility

Buenos Aires.- The president of Argentina, the far-right Javier Milei, announced this Thursday that he will promote a reform of the Criminal Code that, among other aspects, increases penalties for various types of crimes and lowers the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 13 years. “We are introducing these zero-tolerance reforms against crime. If we manage to pass these reforms, those who commit crimes will pay dearly and good Argentinians will live in a safer society”, Milei assured.

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With only a few weeks left until the legislative elections on October 26, the president stated that, to move this project forward, it will be necessary to have parliamentarians in Congress who are “on the side of the victims and not on the side of the criminals”. “There must be harsher penalties, applied to those who deserve them, that trials be held quickly and that criminals serve their sentences where they belong, in prison, so that good Argentinians can live in freedom again,” said the president at an event in the Ezeiza prison, in the province of Buenos Aires. The Argentine Security Minister and senatorial candidate, Patricia Bullrich, defined the proposed Penal Code as a “zero tolerance code”, which “increases the penalties for all crimes, particularly serious ones, and incorporates crimes that citizens suffer daily today.”

Harsher Penalties

Regarding penalties, the Government intends to increase them, for example, from 10 to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicides, and to implement a life sentence for homicides committed by hooligans in places with a massive public. It is also proposed that the carrying of firearms and bladed weapons should have a non-custodial sentence. In addition, penalties are increased for theft, drug trafficking, human trafficking, organized crime, extortionate kidnapping, child pornography, pyramid schemes, virtual kidnappings, harassment, false testimony, and threats. Bullrich detailed that false reporting will also be incorporated as a crime when it is linked to sexual offenses or seeks to restrict the possibility of seeing children. Regarding corruption offenses in public administration, the penalties will be aggravated if the convicted person is a president, vice president, minister, governor, judge, or parliamentarian.

Age of criminal responsibility and non-limitation

As part of the reform, the Milei government proposes lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 13 years old. “Today we see how narcos use ‘little soldiers’, we see how 14 or 15-year-olds murder and return home as if nothing had happened. Therefore, we are proposing the reduction of the age of criminal responsibility to 13 years old,” Bullrich said. Currently, in Argentina, a minor under 16 cannot be charged, while adolescents between 16 and 18 can be charged, but only if the crime they committed carries a sentence of more than 2 years in prison. On the other hand, the Executive proposed that several crimes no longer expire after ten years and become imprescriptible. These are especially serious crimes, such as aggravated homicides, sexual offenses, the corruption of minors, the promotion and facilitation of prostitution, human trafficking, extortionate kidnappings, attacks on the constitutional order and the democratic system, terrorism and drug trafficking, among others.