Brasília, November 20, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The president of the Chamber of Deputies' Constitution and Justice Commission (CCJ), Luiz Eduardo Greenhalgh (PT-SP), affirmed today that he is opposed to increasing the penalty for juvenile offenders from eight to ten years, as proposed by the governor of São Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin. He also said that reducing the legal age in criminal cases from 18 to 16 does not work. In the countries where this measure was adopted, there was an immediate drop in crime, but, in a short time, the index rose to a much higher level than before.

For Greenhalgh, it is necessary to enforce the Statute of the Child and Adolescent. He cited as an example the state of Santa Catarina, where the index of recidivism is only 6%, as against the 56% registered in São Paulo, which is even higher than the national average, which, according to the president of the CCJ, is 43%.

To enforce the Statute, said the president of the CCJ, the State must take socio-educational measures and guarantee that juvenile offenders receive the care of social workers, psychologists, and teachers and, most of all, that families be accompanied. According to the deputy, "wherever there is a juvenile offender, there is a disrupted family."

The president of the Chamber, João Paulo Cunha (PT-SP), is also opposed to reducing the legal age, because he thinks that this "does not resolve the problems of violence and security," but he said that he will add the proposal presented by the governor of São Paulo to others that are already circulating in the Chamber to try to offer society a more up-to-date legislation. (DAS)