When these opportunities are missing, children and adolescents are exposed to drug trafficking and a system that ultimately penalizes the victims and punishes the weakest links. The truly effective path is one of family accompaniment, the construction of public policies focused on comprehensive human development, and the guarantee of a dignified life for all. As for the vision that gives meaning and guides action, in a world traversed by the advance of a throwaway culture, we maintain that adolescents and young people are not a threat, but a present and a hope; indispensable protagonists of a profound transformation. Therefore, it deeply pains us to confirm a growing trend of pursuing and harassing those who are most fragile and vulnerable. This prevents a serious deliberation on the structural problems affecting children and adolescents, especially in the most vulnerable sectors. Crime exists, and doing nothing is not an option. Because what is at stake is not just a law, but the very conception of the person and the model of society we want to build. A reform without conditions of possibility We agree on the need to respond to the multiple situations of abandonment and neglect that many children, girls, boys, and young people live through. In the attempt to rush forward with a project that prioritizes a media splash over building consensus, we maintain that: Lowering the age of criminal responsibility does not solve the problem: it displaces it, hardens it, and deepens it. The material, institutional, and social conditions for a serious juvenile penal system are not guaranteed. An integral approach is needed, with differentiated proposals for prevention, intervention, and reintegration. It is essential to overcome the false dichotomy between punishing or looking the other way and to focus efforts on transforming the structural conditions that generate violence. Reality places us before a decisive dilemma: either we deepen the throwaway culture, or we assume the challenge of building a social fabric that cares, includes, and repairs. But we must ask ourselves with honesty: Under current conditions, is it reasonable to believe that the State, provincial or national, will be able to implement a juvenile penal system that provides psychological treatment, educational continuity, job training, access to health, culture, recreation, spirituality, and comprehensive care for problematic substance use? This path, already successfully implemented in various regions of the country and the world, has shown that it can reduce recidivism to levels close to 0%. It involves criminal judges, victims, offenders, and community organizations in a restorative and truly transformative process. This bill of law raises serious questions of unconstitutionality, as it contradicts principles of the National Constitution, international human rights treaties with constitutional hierarchy (art. 75 inc. 22) and the consolidated doctrine on the rights of children, girls, boys, and adolescents (NNA). Thus, early entry into the penal system not only does not solve the problem, but also deepens the harm and exposes minors to new forms of violence. Scientific evidence and organizations working for the rights of NNA question this assertion decisively. Given the above, we suggest that when a child or adolescent under 16 years of age goes through situations of social conflict and vulnerability, the approach should be in the hands of the Family Courts and the entire System for the Protection and Promotion of Rights, and not the penal system. It is these courts that can order socio-educational measures aimed at reflection, behavior correction, and restitution of rights, in complement with community organizations that can subjectively and lovingly accompany the process of each adolescent. To this is added the provision of disproportionate penalties for adolescents, without a reasonable differentiation between adults and between minor and serious crimes, nor between adolescents of different ages, in open contradiction with the principles of proportionality, exceptionality, and progressivity. Finally, the procedural provisions are imprecise and do not correspond to the advances in procedural guarantees reached at the federal and provincial levels, even compared to the regimes in force for adults. As for the effectiveness of the proposed measure, regional evidence shows that lowering the age of criminal responsibility increases levels of violence and recidivism, and does not decrease insecurity. In this sense, the proposal to lower the age of criminal responsibility installs in the collective imagination the idea that children and adolescents are dangerous. However, the true dangers that plague our neighborhoods—drug trafficking, arms trafficking, structural poverty, and the lack of food, housing, and decent work—continue to operate with high levels of impunity. The organized crime of drug trafficking, which crosses different institutions and strata of society, finds in popular neighborhoods fertile ground to recruit the youngest. Therefore, lowering the age of criminal responsibility has not proven to be a successful policy in terms of security. Considering victims requires reducing and eradicating the levels of recidivism that early incarceration generates. We recognize that there is a legal vacuum that harms many children and adolescents. Having detailed the legal proofs, the sociological reasons, the scientific health statistics, and the comparisons with the laws of other Latin American countries, to continue asserting that lowering the age is a solution shows that we are facing another regressive transformation in law, unfavorable to society as a whole. The painful reality shows that the onset of substance use in many cases occurs at age 9 or 10. It is urgent to allocate specific resources to public policies in mental health and addictions, with accessible care devices, inserted in the territory and adapted to childhood and adolescence, and to stop the defunding of Public Health Policies and the dismissal of workers dedicated to accompanying and containing people affected by problematic consumption and mental health. For adolescents over 16 who commit serious crimes, we propose the application of Restorative Justice. Therefore, we seek to provide elements that broaden and deepen the public debate and a truly responsible reflection. The recognition of the condition of a subject in development implies that NNA have a progressive capacity to exercise rights and assume responsibilities, which must be respected by the legal system (arts. 5 and 10 of Law 26.061). Faced with this reality, the only truly effective response is the creation of real, community-based, and sustained opportunities, capable of generating dreams, hope, and a sense of life. It is opportune to recall the statements of Pope Francis on this matter: 'States must refrain from criminally punishing children who have not yet completed their development towards maturity, and for this reason cannot be held accountable.' That is why we believe it is urgent to act: to repair so much pain, to prevent new violence, reduce the level of social conflict, pacify our neighborhoods, and accompany so many victims who are often left alone and with whom to turn. Like most Argentines, we are convinced that it is necessary to advance in a reform of the Juvenile Penal Regime. Penal intervention must be the last resort to promote the comprehensive protection of childhood. The work with non-punishable children and adolescents—those under 16 years of age—is key to preventing future penal crimes. Instead of promoting an open, plural, and democratic debate that allows building a sustainable and fair reform of the juvenile penal system, we observe with concern the attempt to impose a rushed response, without technical support, without genuine dialogue, and without real institutional conditions for its implementation. That is why this letter is not directed only at Congress: it also seeks to call on society as a whole. A network that acts on the structural causes of violence from the most everyday bonds: in the neighborhoods, in the schools, in the squares, in every corner where the life and future of our children are played out.'
