Marta Ostiz
Madrid (EFE) the crimes they commit.
“The behavior that is established in adolescence is maintained in youth and we have to cut the criminal path, so that there is no recidivism.” This is how José Carlos Rodríguez Díaz, coordinator of the Attention Service for Inimputable Minors of Pinardi, a federation of social platforms that works in collaboration with the Community of Madrid (CAM) summarizes his work.
In recent months there have been complaints, some of them related to sexual assaults, carried out by groups of minors in which young boys participate, several of them even under 14 years of age, who by virtue of the criminal responsibility law of the minor cannot be judicially punished.
Pinardi, a social entity of the Salesians, works with cases referred by the Prosecutor’s Office or the General Directorate for Children of the Community of Madrid and contacts the families of minors under 14 who have committed a crime (the most frequent are cases of violence between peers or in the family, robberies in shopping centers and robberies with violence and problems in the school environment).
Aware that a part of society does not understand that minors under 14 years of age do not have to answer criminally for their acts, no matter how serious these may be, Rodríguez defends that “a society that treats its children as delinquents in the end creates a society of delinquents”.
And he insists that behind any criminal act committed by a child under 14 there are factors to work on. “In their environment there is something that is not working and the criminal act is a message that the child is sending,” she says.
These factors do not occur especially in vulnerable or dysfunctional families. According to this expert, most of the cases are children who come from “normalized environments”, although normality -he assures- is always relative.
“When the cases come in, you see the family difficulties, everyone has them… In the majority, the parents work, they have a stable socioeconomic structure, family relationships, social relationships, but there is something that is not working,” he points out.
Two mothers talk to EFE about their experience
Two mothers whose children have participated in this process have agreed to speak with EFE about their experience, although without detailing the events in which the minors were involved.
This is the case of Mónica’s son, who at the age of 11 entered the specialized Prevention and Intervention Program managed by Pinardi. The minor was referred by the General Directorate for Children, Families and Birth Promotion to this association.
Mónica recounts how at the moment she received the letter from the General Directorate for Children, she rejected this help, which is voluntary, convinced that her son did not need it. However, a year later, when her son was going to start high school, she contacted him again and the words of the social educator made him reconsider.
“When I talked to her, the light appeared to me. She explained to me that my son had emotional consequences for what had happened and that he needed help ”and that is how a two-year process began, of which Monica makes a positive assessment.
“Now my son is a 16-year-old teenager who gives a lot of trouble, but he has tools. He has evolved very well, they hatched him and he has learned, for example, to choose his friends, which were toxic before because he did not know how to do it any other way and his only way to find friends was to let himself be humiliated and even hit ”.
But this process has not only been useful for her son, but also for her. “It helped my son, but he has served me more because I no longer knew how to take it.”
On this same path is Ana, who goes to the center weekly with her daughter (who is now 14 years old, but started when she was 13) with whom they discuss family relationships, impulse control, etc…
He admits that at first he had “vertigo”. “They offer it to you because something has happened, but at the same time a window opens because I was aware that I needed to seek help. She was getting out of hand.”
And after nine months, she already sees her daughter’s evolution, much more open and communicative when “before it was all lies and disrespect”, although she still has a long way to go.
The general director of Childhood, Families and Birth Promotion, Silvia Valmaña, warns of the prejudices on the part of society against these minors and warns that in many cases it is a “matter of luck” to fall on the side of the border that leads to committing a crime.
“The border is very subtle and many times they themselves are not aware that they are playing for one side or the other,” says Valmaña, who regrets that these minors are labeled “criminals.”
And he warns that children, in this stage of character formation, sometimes have explosive behaviors and low quality impulse control, so that, if the perfect storm occurs, crime often occurs.
The entry Working with unimputable minors: It is sought that they do not reoffend, they are not judged or punished was first published in EFE Noticias.