Aplicación del control de convencionalidad y reforma punitiva a las medidas privativas de libertad del adolescente infractor en Ecuador.

Abstract

In developing a study of the principle of conventionality control, its origin, source, and jurisprudence constitute the elements that help analyze the compatibility between the trends in punitive reform and the hardening of sentences applied or proposed regarding custodial measures for juvenile offenders in Ecuador and the constitutional and conventional standards that govern juvenile criminal justice. The problem arises from the social tension that demands security and the application of severe sanctions due to the participation of juvenile offenders in acts of violence, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, the state's requirement to manage a specialized, proportionate system oriented toward the reintegration of juvenile offenders. The intellectual culmination of the research justifies whether reforming the law to harden or normalize the detention of juvenile offenders as the maximum sanction is justified, while ensuring that this action does not affect the principle of conventionality control. The research is based on argumentation; Developing the qualitative factor in the researcher involves considering the dogmatic aspect alongside documentary research in the analysis of constitutional regulations, the legal framework for children and adolescents, criminal law, and international norms from Conventions and Treaties. This body of research, given the Ecuadorian legal reality where socio-educational measures are applied as sanctions to juvenile offenders, highlights a difference in their perceived responsibility. Consequently, a punitive reform in juvenile justice is incompatible with the principle of conventionality control if it displaces the exceptionality, proportionality, limited temporality, and reintegration goals that legitimize the deprivation of liberty.