Prevención de la criminalidad en Colombia : un análisis al criterio de madurez en la responsabilidad penal para adolescentes

Abstract

As a legal problem in this research work, the question is whether it is appropriate to implement the maturity criterion in the Criminal Responsibility System of adolescents in Colombia as a mechanism for crime prevention. The persecution of juvenile offenders in the country finds a stumbling block in the applicable international instruments on Human Rights, which privilege the best interests of children and adolescents, which undermines a real and effective prosecution of minors, even more so when They have been exploited by groups outside the law for the consummation of punishable behaviors, leaving behind the model of retributive justice. A figure that exists in the matter of criminal responsibility for adolescents in laws such as German and Italian is studied, which is based on the study of the unimputability of minors when they commit a crime, which is called “maturity criterion ”And corresponds to a study of a legal, social and psychological nature that is carried out on adolescents, in relation to the crime they commit, in order to determine what type of sanction or measure should be imposed and if it should be judged as unimpeachable or not. Contrary to these countries, in Colombia the imputability in relation to adolescents is given by a single factor: Age, without the possibility of carrying out any kind of study or behavioral analysis of the adolescent; It is for this reason that the main objective of the present research is to analyze the experiences of Germany and Italy in the implementation of the so-called “maturity criterion”, since they constitute themselves as pioneer countries in the matter and also, to evaluate the possibility of implementation of said criterion in the Colombian legal context.