Lula backs lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 16 — The Guardian

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said he supports lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16 for crimes classified by Brazilian law as especially serious. This marks a change in his previous position: Lula and his party had previously opposed such a move.

As The Guardian reports, the president stated his position in an interview with TV Globo on Thursday evening. Asked whether he meant lowering the age to 16, Lula answered in the affirmative.

Statement ahead of the second round

The statement came just over a week before the second round of the presidential election. In the first round, the incumbent president's opponent, far-right Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, outpolled Lula by 2.2 million votes and, according to polls, retained a narrow lead.

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Flávio Bolsonaro and his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, have long supported lowering the age of criminal responsibility. At the same time, they propose setting it at 14. The latest poll this week showed that 80% of Brazil's population support lowering the age of responsibility.

Criticism of the proposal

The list of especially serious crimes in Brazil includes murder, rape, medicine counterfeiting and drug trafficking, among others. About a quarter of the 816,000 people serving sentences in Brazilian prisons have been convicted of drug trafficking.

Human rights organizations and security experts have long criticized proposals to lower the age of criminal responsibility. In their view, such decisions do not help counter violence but may intensify the recruitment of young people by organized crime in overcrowded prisons. Brazil's Episcopal Conference also said that the proposal does not address the causes of violence and that young people's premature entry into the penitentiary system could deepen cycles of violence and social exclusion.