The Public Prosecutor's Office warns that more and more crimes are being committed before the age of 14 and calls for more "early intervention"

BarcelonaRecords show that crimes committed by minors are decreasing, but the Public Prosecutor's Office warns of the opposite. There are increasingly more crimes that cannot be prosecuted because the offender is under 14 years old and, therefore, has not reached the age of criminal responsibility. These cases do not appear in the counts of convictions for minors, but there are more and more of them. In the last year, they have risen by 74%, according to the count from the State Attorney General's Office: last year 4,448 cases were archived because the offender was unaccountable, while in 2023 there were 7,749. However, the Prosecutor's Office warns that the exact figure should be taken with reservations due to a possible error in the 2024 records in Andalusia. Nationwide, in 2023, 11,143 cases were archived for this reason, 7,660 in 2022, and 8,433 in 2021. "The age of commission of criminal acts is progressively dropping," warns the Prosecutor's Office report presented this Thursday.

The document does not specify which types of crimes predominate among the cases that ended up archived because the perpetrator was too young. It does, however, specify the proceedings for adolescents between 14 and 17 years old, where it alerts to a 35% increase in sex crimes. Crimes of violence against women committed by minors are also growing significantly, by 15.2%. "The great efforts being made in equality training are not reaching the youth," adds the Prosecutor's Office report.

Furthermore, the Prosecutor's Office warns of a significant growth in bullying crimes, which have increased by 17.6%. Prosecutors specializing in minors call for a reflection on the "lack of precise mechanisms" to give minors the necessary tools to manage their frustration, taking into account the increase in crimes before the age of 14. "The reality shows that the involvement of these minors in violent and sexualized behaviors demonstrates to us that the demand for early and multidisciplinary intervention is becoming more relevant every day," they claim.

Protection

Regarding minors, the Public Prosecutor's Office has a dual role: on one hand, to demand measures for those who have committed crimes; on the other, to ensure protection by the State when a child is helpless. In this sense, the Public Ministry notes a "deficit in prevention and care" to avoid the chronification of abandonment situations.

The report also notes the upward trend of risk situations for children, which it attributes mainly to an increase in migration. In fact, it assesses that the massive arrivals of unaccompanied minors in the State are "transforming the management of child protection in Spain".

Hate crimes, especially on the internet

The Prosecutor's Office's annual report also points to an increase in investigations into hate crimes, which grew by 15.3% last year compared to 2023. Furthermore, it highlights that nearly 60% of these crimes are committed on social networks or internet platforms.

One of the legal reform proposals made by the Prosecutor's Office in its report is related to discrimination. Specifically, it calls for harmonizing the discrimination factors included in the Penal Code with those recognized by the equal treatment law, which is broader, to expressly incorporate grounds for discrimination that do not yet have "homogeneous recognition" in the law. The proposal would involve adding to the Penal Code forms of discrimination that are already in other laws or that are recognized in practice. Although the Prosecutor's Office does not specify them in the report, some of these grounds for discrimination are gender expression and aporophobia.