The present review refers to the reports of Venezuelan news outlets about criminal cases involving adolescents. As with many other issues, there’s no official data about this topic in the country. The most recent document about the involvement of adolescents in the commission of crimes is from 2018, when the Supreme Tribunal of Justice issued a brief bulletin regarding the situation of 8,346 prosecuted adolescents, 14% of which were imprisoned.
Next is a summary of the information collected between January and April 2020, about adolescent aggressors and victims of crime.
Aggressors and victims
Some news refer to crimes committed within the context of the household, such as the case of a boy (15) arrested by the Miranda police, accused by his mother of wounding his step-father with a knife; or that of a girl (16) who was arrested in Caracas along with three other women for physically and verbally mistreating a 2-month old baby. These assaults were recorded on video and shared publically.
Extremely serious cases are related to sexual violence: a priest was found dead in Junín municipality (Táchira) and the alleged culprit is a 17-year old boy who may have been abused by the priest for three years. In the same state, four adults and two adolescents (15 and 17) were accused of being involved in a child pornography scheme, while a 17-year old boy, apparently the victim of sexual abuse and forced to do the same to other victims, was accused along a 25-year old man, leader of an Evangelical church, of having sexually assaulted 10 children and adolescents ages 10 to 16. In El Junko (Vargas), a 16-year old boy was arrested for his involvement in a case of molestation against an 11-year old girl. A 16-year old girl and her mother were denounced in Santa Teresa del Tuy (Miranda) for allegedly injuring a boy’s genitalia.
Some adolescents are associated with criminal groups and act as aggressors, such as the case of a 17-year old boy allegedly responsible for murdering a farmer (83) in Vargas. Another boy (14) seems to be implicated in the murder of a woman in La Cañada de Urdaneta (Zulia); in Ciudad Ojeda, also in that state, five adults and two adolescents (14 and 16) were apprehended for armed robbery and illegally carrying firearms. An adult and a girl (17) were denounced for the armed robbery of a public transport unit in Carabobo.
There have been arrests of adults and adolescents in crimes attributable to the decline and absence of conditions to access essential goods: in Zulia, an adult and a 17-year old boy were arrested to taking advantage of another person’s livestock and two men and a boy were arrested in flagrancy for illegally extracting 75 liters of gasoline from a gas station in Maracaibo.
In Mérida, a 9-year old girl was reported missing and then found dead, showing signs of rape and physical abuse; the alleged culprit was an adolescent boy who lived alone.
In February, four adolescents were arrested for causing bodily harm to their classmates during the so-called “skull-breaker challenge”, a violent game that went viral on digital platforms.
Transgressions, abuses and quarantine
In a clear violation of the contents of the Child and Adolescent Protection Law (LOPNNA Art. 88, 526, 546 and 550), a native Pemon adolescent remains under police custody after five months, isolated from relatives or lawyers, and without a translator for his language for the trial.
Five Homicide detectives in Valles del Tuy (Miranda) subjected an adolescent arrested in the unit to cruel treatment, recording a video they later shared on social media. These officers were arrested and are being prosecuted. In the Eastern Coast of Maracaibo Lake (Zulia), a 17-year old boy was killed in a shootout, according to police reports. Also in Zulia, another adolescent was killed in a raid of the National Anti-Extortion and Anti-Kidnapping Command (CONAS). Another adolescent died in a police detention facility in Maiquetía (Vargas).
The authorities of some Municipal Rights Councils, Child Protection Councils and Mayor’s Offices, have imposed restrictions on free transit that violate the principles of the Integral Protection Doctrine, since they impose criminal sanctions for behaviors that aren’t considered crimes. The sanitary surveillance to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has been left to police departments, which put children and adolescents at risk with their punitive actions. In Aragua state, police officers threatened to arrest about 20 adolescents for non-compliance with the social quarantine and, in Vargas, the municipal police forced adolescents and adults who broke the quarantine to walk and perform physical activities. The images supporting these reports show actions that can be labeled as degrading treatment and abuse against the adolescents.
These actions contradict the most recent statement of the Committee for the Rights of the Child that reasserts the importance of a treatment compliant with the legal norms, and urges authorities to avoid arresting children and adolescents for violating the regulations imposed by the States in relation with COVID-19 and to return any child or adolescent subject to detention in these circumstances to their families.
A system with debts to clear
Traditionally, adolescence has been tied to irresponsibility and lack of awareness, but many adolescents in Venezuela have offered us accounts of commitment with a support for their families, despite suffering serious deprivations and the loss of their essential rights to health, education, reliable public services and opportunities for sports, culture and healthy entertainment.
Those who identify with violence or commit crimes before turning 18 years old are a clear minority. It’s urgent to relieve the injustice of imposing discriminatory, humiliating and punitive treatments, or exercising repression and persecution against citizens stigmatized solely by their age. While it’s true that adolescents who commit crimes against third parties or society as a whole must indeed face the consequences of their actions, this must take place with the legal framework and on the basis of the Convention of the Rights of the Child; therefore, it is necessary for the Criminal Liability System to act within the law, following the corresponding specialized procedures and clearing the pending debt regarding the creation and application of a general policy of justice for children and adolescents, emphasizing the attention of risk factors and focusing on prevention, tackling the causes of the problem to minimize the perverse impact of its consequences.
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