MINORS, CORRUPTION
by. — The corruption of minors is understood as the action of one who commits acts of lust
with persons below an age averaging around 16 years; and the offense exists whether such acts are committed upon the minor or in his presence, as by inducing him to commit them upon himself, upon the person of the seducer, or upon others. Apart from the turpitude of the acts in question, certainly grave is the abuse made of the inexperience and ingenuousness of an adolescent, who either has not yet reached, or has only recently passed, the age of childhood—that is, the age in which he most needs education and good example, the age of developing passions and an unstable character—in order to corrupt and dishonor him. Thus, almost all legislation protects his lack of awareness, applying the aphorism, an echo of a higher natural law: maxima debetur puero reverentia. Every act of corruption and every seduction is punishable (v. SCANDALO), but particularly grave is incitement to corruption that takes advantage of the victim’s young age, often opening the way to another serious social disorder, juvenile delinquency.
For this reason, almost all penal codes prescribe penalties for those who corrupt minors. The age is not always 16, as in the Italian Penal Code (cf. arts. 530, 539–544); the codes of other nations in fact provide for a lower age: thus, 14 in the Austrian Code, and 16 and 14 in the German Code, according to the seriousness of the lustful acts. Another constituent element, representing the material aspect of the offense, is constituted by acts of lust, that is, acts directed toward sexual gratification. Certain reprehensible acts, such as a speech, a reading, a book, or an obscene performance, although condemnable from the moral standpoint, escape criminal sanction, since they do not constitute the offense under consideration, which requires that the corruption take place through acts of lust. The punishable acts of lust in the various penal codes, as in the CIC and in the Italian Penal Code, may then be committed either upon the person of the minor or simply in his presence, in all those forms which, although carried out without bodily contact, contain within themselves corrupting power, arousing in the minor the senses of concupiscence. Even a single act is sufficient to constitute the offense, provided that it possesses the corrupting efficacy that constitutes the grounds for the criminalization.
The offense exists even when the victim consents, since the law is directed toward protecting youth against acts in respect of which the minor cannot generally be presumed capable of giving valid consent. According to at least certain currents of jurisprudence, the offense exists even if the minor is already corrupted, whatever the degree of corruption he has reached, since the minor’s precocious sensuality cannot exclude the perversity of the person who abuses him, thereby making his redemption more difficult. In any event, it is certain that even in a corrupted person there may be degrees of corruption, and the law would be ill-advised if it did not punish the act of one who endeavored to push further along the path of corruption, even to the most unrestrained libertinism, a minor who had already begun upon II. Corrupting acts may occur at different times through the actions
of several persons and with progressively increasing influences, so that the person who completes the ruin of innocence and virtue is no less guilty than the one who began II.
The person who commits the offense need not have a specific intent, which is psychologically almost impossible to establish in this crime. Ordinarily, the legislator increases the penalty
if the offense is committed by deceit, or if the guilty party is an ascendant of the minor, or if the care, education, instruction, supervision, or custody of the minor has been entrusted to him.
Acts of violent lust upon the person of a minor constitute a special category. Other circumstances may aggravate the offense, for example, if it is committed in a public place or in a place exposed to public view, or upon a minor without a legal representative, etc. More often than the law, it is jurisprudence that determines their weight; in order to fulfill the purposes of the law, such jurisprudence ought above all to keep the protection of the minor in view, rather than that of the corrupter. The offense of corruption is generally prosecuted only upon private complaint, that is, following a complaint by the injured party, except in certain cases, or when the offense, for example, is committed by the minor’s parent or guardian, or by a public official; it is then prosecuted ex officio (Italian Penal Code, art. 530).
The CIC decrees that laymen who have been lawfully convicted of offenses against the sixth commandment committed with minors under 16 years of age are automatically deemed infamous (infamia iuris: penalty latae sententiae, can. 2357 § 1), and gives the Ordinary the power to impose other penalties if he considers it appropriate (indeterminate penalties: ferendae sententiae, can. 2357 § 1). And if clerics were to be found guilty of such offenses, in the case of minor clerics—upon whom the law of celibacy has not been imposed—it decrees that they be punished with suitable penalties, not excluding suspension from the clerical state (can. 2358); in the case of major clerics, that they be suspended, declared infamous, deprived of any office, benefice, dignity, or position, and, in the most serious cases, deposed from their state (can. 2359 § 2).
Juvenile criminality is for the most part distinguished
1. Scholars of criminal anthropology and psychology agree in classifying the causes of crime under two distinct orders or categories: social causes and individual causes. Crime is thus also a biosociological phenomenon, in the sense that its production involves, to differing degrees, on the one hand, individual conditions concerning the physical and psychological development and characteristics of the individual; and, on the other, social conditions, among which are considered the degree of civilization, economic, cultural and political circumstances, climate, education, environment, etc.
a) Age and sex. — The period in which the minor delinquent is most commonly manifested is that of growth. Because of the complex relations, mostly antagonistic in nature, established between this phenomenon and psychological development, the minor does not fully possess the faculty of controlling instinctive-affective exuberance or of inhibiting increasingly powerful and distinct organic impulses. In relation to the development of criminality, the biological condition linked to sex may be of particular importance. Statistics in fact reveal a marked difference in the number and nature of the offenses committed by women compared with those committed by men. The different physiological and psychological characteristics and the particular tasks proper to women explain why, among them too, criminality follows a different qualitative and quantitative course. Crimes requiring muscular strength, audacity and aggressiveness are in fact not found in female delinquency. Rather than violence, women resort to fraud and slander and, in cases of homicide, to nonviolent methods. It is observed, however, that female juvenile delinquency is more liable to become habitual. Thus recidivism among minors also exceeds that among males. This is certainly due to the more prompt treatment of the male, who is reached by corrective measures before he has acquired the habit of crime.
b) Heredity. — The hereditary factor is connected with the origin of the various biological processes that may influence criminal activities. Morelli, Lombroso and, in general, all those who adhere to the doctrine of hereditary degeneration, which denies faith in the regenerating power of the race, attribute to the hereditary factor an almost exclusive importance in the genesis of delinquency in general and juvenile delinquency in particular. Experience and scientific investigation demonstrate, however, that delinquency is not transmitted, but only a predisposition to delinquency itself (v. EREDITANETÀ). If this predisposition to crime is produced by individual causes, other causes, preparatory or triggering, arise and mature within the environment.
c) The family. — In a depraved or disrupted family environment, the minor cannot attain a sound and moral formation; but, succumbing to the fascination of the passions unleashed by the disorder surrounding him, he may degenerate into outright delinquency.
d) Poverty. — Poverty, too, whether caused by material need or by idleness, has a deleterious influence. In such a condition, minors suffer from the lack of resources affecting their families, which arouses in them morbid desires and passions.
e) Moral contagion. — Finally, deleterious are the influences that the contagion and suggestion of criminals may exert upon minors, especially when they are already predisposed to delinquent impulses. Lies, anger and the instinct of cruelty are easily transmitted; and experience teaches how dangerous are associations of juvenile delinquents formed in imitation of those of adult criminals.
1940. Correction of minors
The enormous gravity of juvenile delinquency and the danger that follows from it for the social order have led to the enactment of rules for the prevention (v.) and correction of delinquent minors.The Church, attentive to this correction, was the first to promote remedies. Clement XI, by the motu proprio of 14 November 1703, establishing the first correctional institutions for minors, ordered that young people who had not completed twenty years of age, instead of being taken to ordinary prisons, should be confined in correctional institutions. Confinement aimed at the re-education of the young person through Christian religious instruction, preparation for work and the teaching of a trade.
The current CIC, although it lacks special legislation, gives particular consideration to delinquent minors.
It distinguishes between infancy and minority. The infans, who is under seven years of age, is presumed iuris tantum to be irresponsible. A minor, on the other hand, may, in the judgment of the judge, be considered imputable, at least to a limited extent. The presumption iuris tantum also applies to the lesser imputability of minors, unless the contrary is established. The reason for this reservation lies precisely in consideration of the minor’s psychological state, since he is in the period of crisis.
The CIC (can. 2230) also recommends that educational punishments rather than severe retributive penalties be applied to the impubes. In general, the penal remedies indicated are admonition, correction, precept and supervision, which becomes obligatory if the gravity of the case so requires and especially if there is a danger of recidivism («si causa gravitas ferat et praecipue agatur de eo qui in periculo versatur relabendi in idem crimen »; cf. cann. 2306-11). Puberes, in addition to the aforementioned educational penalties, are also subjected to severe retributive penalties and the same censures.
The Italian Penal Code considers minors under fourteen years of age not responsible (art. 97). For those, however, who have reached fourteen but not eighteen years of age, imputability is established by their capacity to understand and to will (art. 98). In this case, however, the penalty is reduced.
Jurisdiction to prosecute all offenses committed by minors under eighteen is assigned to the juvenile court, established by R. D. L. of 20 July 1934, no. 1404. For the execution of judicial measures, rehabilitation homes for minors and observation centers have been established, in which a scientific examination of the minor is conducted in order to determine the degree of his personality and, consequently, to indicate the most suitable means of ensuring his reintegration into public life (arts. 1–8). The juvenile court has the power to order that a delinquent minor be interned in a reformatory for corrigible offenders, if it has emerged from the evidence taken that the minor has acquired illicit habits and gives manifest signs of deviation and moral corruption (art. 25). Of the greatest interest is art. 2, which provides that magistrates must possess special competence and a profound understanding of the psychological nature of the minor. Finally, a procedure particularly suited to this purpose is adopted, suspending all those procedural requirements relating to deadlines, formalities, and the solemnities of the proceedings that are less suited to the mind and psychology of the minor. This, however, still falls far short of an effective method of prevention (v.).