This year has been the scene of long debates about the new modalities of crimes that have not yet been incorporated under the current Penal Code of the Argentine Republic, which dates back to 1921. There have been many structural reforms over more than a century, but, for specialized analysts at the Catholic University of Salta (UCASAL), nothing is sufficient today, so much so that “the Penal Code is at its most critical point.”
The assessment that current criminality exceeds the limits of the existing regulatory framework has prompted the Executive Power to design a comprehensive reform proposal that the national Government plans to send to Congress before the end of this year. In a single unified project led by the Ministry of Justice and technical teams, reforms will be incorporated “for the toughening of penalties,” meaning a general increase in sentences for theft, robbery, drug trafficking, and crimes against minors. “Legitimate defense will also be reinforced,” with modifications to expand protection for those defending themselves in dangerous situations, especially in homes and for law enforcement officers.
Additionally, another highlighted point of the Executive is the discussion about an effective life sentence (with stricter regulations) and changes in the statute of limitations for crimes. To all this, new figures are added, such as the inclusion of sanctions for the entry of mobile phones into prisons and typifications for activities like unauthorized violent car parking attendants.
Other innovations to be included will be in the modalities of cybercrimes, with AI or virtual scams, which the current century-old norm does not adequately cover, according to the Ministry of Justice: “These are everyday crimes or highly complex technological crimes that are not adequately typified or have outdated penalties,” and this creates worrying legal gaps that complicate convictions. In summary, the official project “seeks to unify more than a thousand special laws into a single updated legal body.”
‘We are overwhelmed by new crimes without sufficient laws’
All these urgently needed innovations, as proposed by the Executive, will allow adapting criminal policy and public security forces through a deep institutional restructuring, normative reforms, and the creation of specific programs to respond to the new modalities of “complex criminality.”
Referring to the old and current Penal Code “of liberal matrix, conceived in the Industrial Revolution for a physical space,” they admit that “it is no longer enough.” Therefore, “in the face of the digitalization and transnationality of crimes,” they designed an autonomous Title of Computer Crimes that typifies behaviors today overwhelmed “or in a limbo of punishability, such as ransomware, digital identity theft with criminal intent, autonomous phishing, and commercial data theft.” On the other hand, the official diagnosis, endorsed by the National Criminal Information System (SNIC), indicates, among other situations, that “current crime rapidly mutates to virtual environments, transnational networks, and complex financial structures that require modern tools.”
According to high justice authorities, “we are overwhelmed” by organized and technological crime, and for this reason, “the reform under discussion seeks to explicitly typify and incorporate modalities that did not exist before or were not correctly regulated.” They also refer to computer tools applied to scams, identity theft, and massive hacks to confront cybercrime and digital crimes. These are “new scales to curb pyramid schemes, in the field of organized and financial crime,” which also includes virtual kidnappings and assaults at the bank exit or home entry.
Among the specific modalities are the crimes of “sleeping beauty,” robberies committed by motorcyclists, illegal fuel transport blockades, migratory crimes, and ecocide (“serious, massive, and irreversible damage caused to natural ecosystems”), which destroys biodiversity, alters the climate, and endangers human life, largely alluding to intentional fires occurring in various parts of the country, especially in summer. Additionally, it is proposed to limit automatic releases and the reduction of sentences for repeat offenders.
The challenges of digital crime and zero tolerance
The UCASAL research, featuring, among other prominent professionals, Gonzalo Emanuel Molinati, an academic and lawyer specializing in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity applied to law, addresses this change in the Penal Code, and supports that criminal law must be reformed “to face the challenges of digital crime, through dynamic regulation, strengthened institutions, international cooperation, and sustained public policies.” However, the approach is fulfilled “from criminal law and criminal policy, without intending to exhaust the technical aspects of computing or cybersecurity.”
This work analyzes how the rapid advancement of technology has generated new forms of criminality “that overwhelm the Argentine Penal Code, which highlights critical normative gaps.” Moreover, through concrete cases and updated statistics, it exposes “the insufficiency of the current legal framework, the lack of preparation, and the weakness of public policies.”
Meanwhile, the Government of Javier Milei has already brought the first draft to Congress and after corrections for “technical disproportions in penalties,” the Ministry of Justice is restructuring the project. The final version will be sent shortly for consideration before the end of the year in Congress. Evidently, if there had to be a title for the final project, it would be “Zero Tolerance in Argentina.”
This year has been the scene of long debates about the new modalities of crimes that have not yet been incorporated under the current Penal Code of the Argentine Republic, which dates back to 1921. There have been many structural reforms over more than a century, but, for specialized analysts at the Catholic University of Salta (UCASAL), nothing is sufficient today, so much so that “the Penal Code is at its most critical point.”
The assessment that current criminality exceeds the limits of the existing regulatory framework has prompted the Executive Power to design a comprehensive reform proposal that the national Government plans to send to Congress before the end of this year. In a single unified project led by the Ministry of Justice and technical teams, reforms will be incorporated “for the toughening of penalties,” meaning a general increase in sentences for theft, robbery, drug trafficking, and crimes against minors. “Legitimate defense will also be reinforced,” with modifications to expand protection for those defending themselves in dangerous situations, especially in homes and for law enforcement officers.
Additionally, another highlighted point of the Executive is the discussion about an effective life sentence (with stricter regulations) and changes in the statute of limitations for crimes. To all this, new figures are added, such as the inclusion of sanctions for the entry of mobile phones into prisons and typifications for activities like unauthorized violent car parking attendants.
Other innovations to be included will be in the modalities of cybercrimes, with AI or virtual scams, which the current century-old norm does not adequately cover, according to the Ministry of Justice: “These are everyday crimes or highly complex technological crimes that are not adequately typified or have outdated penalties,” and this creates worrying legal gaps that complicate convictions. In summary, the official project “seeks to unify more than a thousand special laws into a single updated legal body.”
‘We are overwhelmed by new crimes without sufficient laws’
All these urgently needed innovations, as proposed by the Executive, will allow adapting criminal policy and public security forces through a deep institutional restructuring, normative reforms, and the creation of specific programs to respond to the new modalities of “complex criminality.”
Referring to the old and current Penal Code “of liberal matrix, conceived in the Industrial Revolution for a physical space,” they admit that “it is no longer enough.” Therefore, “in the face of the digitalization and transnationality of crimes,” they designed an autonomous Title of Computer Crimes that typifies behaviors today overwhelmed “or in a limbo of punishability, such as ransomware, digital identity theft with criminal intent, autonomous phishing, and commercial data theft.” On the other hand, the official diagnosis, endorsed by the National Criminal Information System (SNIC), indicates, among other situations, that “current crime rapidly mutates to virtual environments, transnational networks, and complex financial structures that require modern tools.”
According to high justice authorities, “we are overwhelmed” by organized and technological crime, and for this reason, “the reform under discussion seeks to explicitly typify and incorporate modalities that did not exist before or were not correctly regulated.” They also refer to computer tools applied to scams, identity theft, and massive hacks to confront cybercrime and digital crimes. These are “new scales to curb pyramid schemes, in the field of organized and financial crime,” which also includes virtual kidnappings and assaults at the bank exit or home entry.
Among the specific modalities are the crimes of “sleeping beauty,” robberies committed by motorcyclists, illegal fuel transport blockades, migratory crimes, and ecocide (“serious, massive, and irreversible damage caused to natural ecosystems”), which destroys biodiversity, alters the climate, and endangers human life, largely alluding to intentional fires occurring in various parts of the country, especially in summer. Additionally, it is proposed to limit automatic releases and the reduction of sentences for repeat offenders.
The challenges of digital crime and zero tolerance
The UCASAL research, featuring, among other prominent professionals, Gonzalo Emanuel Molinati, an academic and lawyer specializing in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity applied to law, addresses this change in the Penal Code, and supports that criminal law must be reformed “to face the challenges of digital crime, through dynamic regulation, strengthened institutions, international cooperation, and sustained public policies.” However, the approach is fulfilled “from criminal law and criminal policy, without intending to exhaust the technical aspects of computing or cybersecurity.”
This work analyzes how the rapid advancement of technology has generated new forms of criminality “that overwhelm the Argentine Penal Code, which highlights critical normative gaps.” Moreover, through concrete cases and updated statistics, it exposes “the insufficiency of the current legal framework, the lack of preparation, and the weakness of public policies.”
Meanwhile, the Government of Javier Milei has already brought the first draft to Congress and after corrections for “technical disproportions in penalties,” the Ministry of Justice is restructuring the project. The final version will be sent shortly for consideration before the end of the year in Congress. Evidently, if there had to be a title for the final project, it would be “Zero Tolerance in Argentina.”
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