CATORCE (14) AÑOS. Una propuesta de criterio “vinculante”, intocable desde los actuales postulados del Derecho penal de la seguridad, para la fijación del límite mínimo de la Ley reguladora de la responsabilidad penal del menor
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36151/Keywords:
Adolescence, social alarm, social tolerance, criminological characteristics of juvenile delinquency, biological criterion, age, compulsory education, emancipation, educational purpose, maturity, age of majority, minor, security and zero-tolerance model, criminal policy, evolutionary process, liability, assistance and protection systemAbstract
The establishment of the threshold for criminal intervention against the minor offender remains a concern of theorists and legal practitioners, a debate which has focused primarily on the proposals for reduction of this threshold to 12 or 13 years old (or even a lower age). Criminological reasons on the beginning of criminal activity, and quantitative and qualitative data, do not seem to be very conclusive, especially when researches are so scarce. Neither the arguments related to the lack of an appropiate response from the protection system justify a decision in favour of reducing the minimum threshold. This is a time dominated by criminal law based on security and punitive populism, in which criminal reforms take as their justification a social demand generated from an apparent insecurity, and the mass media act as platforms for enhancing the state of alarmism. Therefore, becomes more necessary to find a justification of the threshold of criminal intervention based on liability: the civil regulation on the emancipation allows to keep this minimum threshold at the age of 14.
