A Turkish parliamentary commission has proposed lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10 and restricting sentence reductions for minors involved in serious crimes, the pro-government Sabah daily reported on Wednesday.
The report by the Commission for Research on Children Driven to Crime recommends sweeping changes to Turkey’s juvenile justice system, including narrower sentence reductions for children aged 15 to 18, sanctions for parents who fail to comply with rehabilitation measures and the creation of a centralized digital monitoring system for children deemed at risk.
The commission said the proposals were aimed at preventing the rise in juvenile crime and addressing what it described as a public perception of impunity in cases involving children.
Under Turkey’s current penal code, children who have not turned 12 at the time of an offense have no criminal responsibility and cannot be prosecuted, although child-specific security measures may be imposed.
Children aged 12 to 15 may be held criminally responsible only if they are found to have understood the legal meaning and consequences of the act and had sufficient capacity to direct their behavior.
The draft report recommends examining whether the minimum age of criminal responsibility, currently 12, should be lowered to 10. It also calls for a more gradual system of sentence reductions for children aged 15 to 18 and tighter limits on probation-style measures.
For serious offenses, the commission recommended reconsidering age-based sentence reductions and narrowing the scope of good-conduct and discretionary reductions, either through legal limits or greater judicial scrutiny.
Official figures show that the number of minors coming into contact with law enforcement as suspects has risen by more than 50 percent over the past nine years, with offenses linked to organized crime, including murder and drug trafficking, among the fastest-growing categories.
Rights advocates say many teenagers lured into criminal networks come from disadvantaged neighborhoods, have weak ties to education or employment and are vulnerable to gangs that promise money, protection or online notoriety.
The report also identifies family structure and parental supervision as important factors in children being drawn into crime, saying some families fail to comply with rehabilitation and protective measures.
It recommends administrative fines or criminal sanctions, including possible community service, for parents who fail to comply with court-ordered or social service measures, do not take an active role in their child’s rehabilitation or neglect their duty of supervision.
The report also calls for changes to the school curriculum, including more classes on basic legal knowledge, social rules, rights and responsibilities, as well as warnings about peer bullying, the role of social media in disinformation and crime, and crime awareness.
The commission was established in November 2025 to investigate the reasons children are drawn into crime following months of debate sparked by the killing of Turkish-Italian teenager Mattia Ahmet Minguzzi by peers in İstanbul in January 2025.
The issue has gained renewed urgency following two school shootings in April that shocked the country.
On April 15 a 14-year-old student opened fire at a school in the southern province of Kahramanmaraş, killing eight students and a teacher, according to officials. An 11-year-old girl who was wounded in the attack died in the hospital more than two weeks later, bringing the death toll to 10. The young attacker also died at the scene.
Authorities said the boy brought five firearms to the school and was the son of a former police inspector, who was later arrested.
A day earlier, in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, a former student opened fire at his former high school, wounding 16 people before dying by suicide when confronted by police.
Following the attacks, Turkey tightened security at schools nationwide. Police officers were deployed outside schools, additional teams were placed on standby during school hours and stricter entry rules were introduced, including identity checks and appointment requirements for parents.
Some schools also banned mobile phones, smartwatches and tablets, while others required students to wear uniforms to enter school buildings and barred parents from waiting in schoolyards. Early student pickups had to be coordinated with school management, and items brought from outside were to be left at security checkpoints rather than taken directly into classrooms.