Criminal majority it is the establishment of an age at which citizens are fully responsible for the criminal acts they commit.
The criminal age of majority in Brazil and in most Western countries is 18 years.
What is?
The establishment of a minimum age that determines that a person becomes an adult varies according to culture, historical moment, gender and religions.
In most Western countries, the age of majority comes from 18 years. However, in Japan, that age is 21 years old. Likewise, in some indigenous tribes, initiation into adulthood begins at 13 years of age.
For girls, in many cultures, the sign of adulthood would be the arrival of her first menstruation when she would have become a woman with reproductive capabilities.
Therefore, we must understand the age of majority in multiple aspects. In Brazil, despite the criminal majority being 18 years old, voting is optional for minors between 16 and 18 years old, for example.
In this way, the concept of coming of age may or may not be accompanied by more responsibilities in public, social and political life.
arguments
The discussion about reducing the age of criminal responsibility in the case of heinous crimes generates heated debates. There are several arguments for and against the measure.
Let's see what points of view are defended by those who want to reduce the age of criminal responsibility:
- Discernment: A young person aged 16 to 18 is already able to know what is right and wrong. So he is fully capable of being held responsible for a heinous crime.
- Insufficient punitive measures: the measures provided for in the Statute of Children and Adolescents would not be enough and several minors took advantage of this to commit crimes.
- Decrease in enticement by drug trafficking: many minors are recruited because drug traffickers know they won't go to jail.
On the other hand, those who are against reducing the age of criminal responsibility, remember about the structural problems in Brazil such as:
- Inequality: you Brazil's social problems they mainly affect black and poor teenagers, which would aggravate racism and marginalization of this social group.
- education: Crime among adolescents and young people should be solved with investments in education and health and not with punishment.
- prison model: the prisons in the country are not prepared to re-socialize adults, much less would they be suitable to receive young people.
Brazil
In Brazil, for offenses committed by persons under 18, the Child and Adolescent Statute (ECA). This privileges the education of the individual and not its punishment.
From time to time, however, it returns to the discussion in Brazil about the need to reduce the legal age of majority. In 2015, the initiative was taken by deputy Efraim Filho (DEM/PB) who intended to reduce the age of majority sentence from 18 to 16 years in the case of heinous crimes.
The heinous crimes are those considered the most serious and revolting from the point of view of current morality. In Brazil, rape, murder, robbery (robbery followed by death), prostitution of minors or vulnerable, among others, are recognized as heinous.
As in Brazil, age of majority is a matter enshrined in the constitutional text, the deputy proposed a Proposal for a Constitutional Amendment (PEC) to be incorporated into the Brazilian Constitution. The PEC was voted on and passed by the Chamber of Deputies in 2015, but was rejected by the Senate.
read more:
- poverty in Brazil
- Child labor
- racism in Brazil
- Citizenship
- Death penalty
- Prison System in Brazil
