In the United States, more than 200,000 juveniles under the age of 18 are incarcerated after being tried in adult courts. Some children as young as 12 potentially face a lifetime of imprisonment for violent crimes committed before they even started middle school.
Laws in Mexico prevent under-18s from facing trial as adults, and most children under the age of 14 are excused from spending any time in a detention facility, even if they commit serious offenses.
Calls to end Mexico’s lenient policy toward minors who are guilty of violent crimes have stepped up a gear since a six-year-old boy was killed during a “game of kidnap” in a economically challenged neighborhood of Chihuahua on May 14.
Family members of Christopher Raymundo Marquez Mora are demanding that the confessed perpetrators of the murder – two 15-year-old boys, two 13-year-old girls and one 11-year-old boy – are tried equally and face the harshest punishments, even if that means sending them to prison when they reach the age of 18.
Investigators say the five minors admitted tying up Marquez Mora after inviting him to play a game simulating a kidnapping. They told police they became scared after the boy got hurt, so they hit him with a club and pelted him with stones, eventually strangling and stabbing him, before covering his body with weeds and a dead dog.
Although all five minors have been charged, under Mexico’s legal system the 13-year-old girls and 11-year-old boy cannot be detained but remain under the supervision of a social welfare agency. Currently, they are back living with their parents and have been told not to communicate with each other, or go near the home of the murdered boy. If found guilty they will be obliged to take part in a rehab program but probably will not be locked up and kept away from the public. The 15-year-olds have been remanded in a juvenile detention facility and, theoretically, could remain incarcerated until they are 25. However, young offenders in Mexico on average spend about three years in detention before they are released back into the community.
Most recently, a 14-year-old, Edgar Jimenez, who admitted killing four people on behalf of the Pacífico Sur drug cartel, was detained for just three years before being set free. The case prompted widespread international media attention and came as a shock to most Mexicans, even though this country is hardened to constant reports of drug-related violence.
Research shows that upward of 30,000 minors are arrested and charged with crimes each year in Mexico.