El Salvador incorporates life imprisonment for minors under 12 years of age in serious crimes

San Salvador.- This Thursday afternoon, El Salvador incorporated life imprisonment for minors under 12 years of age for serious crimes such as terrorism, aggravated homicide or rape, as part of a series of legal reforms that were approved by the Legislative Assembly. This decision is framed within the tightening of criminal policy, following the ratification of a constitutional reform that authorizes this type of sentence for adults and now, extending to adolescents, with the express purpose of combating criminal and gang structures. According to the official information gathered in the legislative opinion, the reform not only alters the Penal Code and the Juvenile Criminal Law, but also the Special Law Against Acts of Terrorism and the Law against organized crime. Unlike the previous regime, where minors under 12 could only be sanctioned, in serious cases, with up to 10 years of internment and those over 16 up to 15 years, the new legal framework establishes perpetual punishment as the only possible sentence for crimes such as homicide, femicide, rape and gang membership, for adolescents between 12 and 18 years old. This represents a radical change in the country's juvenile justice model.

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Up to this moment, the Juvenile Criminal Law provided for maximum detentions of 10 to 20 years for serious crimes such as homicide, extortion, kidnapping, sexual offenses or crimes related to drugs and terrorist organizations. With the reform, when the infraction is typified with life imprisonment in the Penal Code, the judges must impose that sentence mandatorily. The approved text specifies: “In the case of crimes whose penalty is life imprisonment, this will be imposed”.