Legislación Ecuatoriana y Sanciones para adolescentes infractores en delitos de Sicariato : eficacia y desafíos, 2024.

Abstract

Current national legislation classifies and judges crimes such as contract killings committed by adolescent offenders through two main Organic Codes: the Organic Code of Children and Adolescence (CONA) and the Comprehensive Organic Penal Code (COIP). Norms that do not achieve a balance between criminal responsibility and the right to comprehensive rehabilitation of adolescent offenders, whose recruitment has increased each year by criminal gangs, based on their non-imputability and low-stringency custodial sentences. This work is oriented to the analysis of Ecuadorian legislation and its sanctions applied to adolescent offenders for crimes of contract killing. Evaluates the responsibility of the adolescent offender in Ecuador, their age of imputability based on the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Subsequently, a comprehensive legislative reform is proposed to the Comprehensive Organic Penal Codes and the Code of Children and Adolescents, with the aim of reducing the rate of youth recruitment in criminal acts, known as forced criminalization. It is proposed to more rigorously criminalize the forced recruitment of minors for contract killing and organized crime activities, and to establish a closed punitive regime in specialized centers for adolescent offenders, to dissuade intellectual actors from using minors through forced criminalization. Likewise, the need for special treatment for these minors is emphasized, which includes psychological support and a rehabilitative approach, in order to facilitate their social reintegration and reduce criminal reintegration rates.