Residents, business owners, and officials of Municipalidad de Villa Allende, Córdoba, are tired of crimes committed by minors.
There has even been a sharp increase in recent months in criminal incidents - primarily robberies - committed by individuals under 18 years of age.
What worries and outrages people the most is that those children and adolescents are detained by the Police, but released almost immediately.
For this reason, the municipality is one of those leading the demand to lower the age of criminal responsibility.
Juvenile offenders in Villa Allende
The administration of Pablo Cornet, who is at the head of Villa Allende, is seeking solutions to the issue of insecurity, for example, through the installation of gates in neighborhoods and monitoring with cameras and drones.
Nevertheless, the legal aspect is beyond its reach.
Villa Allende Government Secretary, Felipe Crespo, made this very clear.
"Children and adolescents know they are effectively exempt from criminal liability. Today some of them break in and when they are apprehended, because the cameras identify them, authorities take them out through one door and then send them back into their homes through another," he stated.
The official maintained that the juvenile offenders are children of 8, 9, and 10 years of age.
Robbery at Quilmes Club in Villa Allende
Days ago, the bar at the tennis courts of Quilmes Club in Villa Allende fell victim to insecurity in the middle of the night.
They stole rackets, a coffee machine, a plasma TV, and merchandise, among other things.
"They steal them and hide them in a container so they can go back for them another day. That's why we were able to find most of the items. It is clear they are kids because they do not drive cars," an agent familiar with the incident said.
Crespo said that the incident caused a significant "sense of insecurity" in Villa Allende, a municipality that appears to be in line with Javier Milei's Government's idea of having a new Juvenile Criminal Law.
