The Responsibility of the Delinquent Child

Abstract

The discussion about how the prosecuted child should respond for criminal acts committed generates two dominant positions. One demands special ‘punishments’ while the other seeks ‘social and psychological responsibilization’. This article discusses both positions in the search for a synthesis that maintains the best elements of each. It thus proposes to guarantee fair trials, restricting the traditional judicial discretion in this field, but simultaneously rejecting the entire system of special punishments as a route for the construction of social and subjective responsibility. The alternative proposed is inserted in the field of Restorative Justice, in opposition to the Systems of Juvenile Penal Responsibility. It defends the notion of ‘co-responsibility sanction’ to substitute that defined as ‘responsibilization sanctions’, and of integral ‘guaranteeism’ instead of the notion of ‘penal guaranteeism’.

Keywords

• responsabilidad
• niñez
• delito
• responsabilidade
• infância
• delito
• responsibility
• childhood
• crime