 has submitted legislation that would allow judges to sentence minors ages 15 to 17 to life or aggravated life imprisonment for certain killings and serious injury offenses, removing the mandatory reduction granted because of the defendant’s age.){kind=link}
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has submitted legislation that would allow judges to sentence minors ages 15 to 17 to life or aggravated life imprisonment for certain killings and serious injury offenses, removing the mandatory reduction granted because of the defendant’s age.
Aggravated life imprisonment is the harshest sentence under Turkish law.
The bill contains 18 articles, would amend seven laws and could be enacted before parliament begins its summer recess at the end of July, AKP parliamentary group deputy chair Leyla Şahin Usta announced Tuesday.
Under the proposal, judges could withhold any reduction based on age from a minor convicted of intentional homicide or intentional injury resulting in serious harm.
The court would consider the degree of intent, the motive, the manner of the offense and whether the minor had previously been sentenced for an intentional crime.
Current law does not allow courts to impose either form of life imprisonment on defendants who were under 18 when the offense occurred. For minors ages 15 to 17, an aggravated life sentence is replaced by 18 to 24 years in prison, while a life sentence is replaced by 12 to 15 years.
Other prison terms are reduced by one-third and cannot exceed 12 years for each offense.
For youngsters aged 12 to 14, criminal responsibility depends on whether the court finds that the child understood the act and had sufficient ability to control his or her conduct.
The bill would retain that test but allow judges to apply a smaller reduction in homicide and serious injury cases.
The proposal would also lower from 18 to 15 the age at which Turkey’s repeat offender provisions can apply.
The AKP argues that the change would deter criminal organizations from recruiting children to commit offenses in the expectation that they will receive shorter sentences.
The legislation follows public anger over a series of violent crimes involving teenage suspects, including a mass shooting at a middle school in the southeastern province of Kahramanmaraş on April 15.
A 14-year-old student used five pistols registered to his father, a police officer, to kill eight students and a teacher and wound more than a dozen other people. The attacker died after being injured while others tried to stop him.
The shooting came one day after a 19-year-old former student opened fire at a high school in nearby Şanlıurfa province, wounding 16 people before killing himself. The attacks prompted debate over school safety, access to firearms and violence involving young people.
Other cases that fueled demands for changes include the 2025 stabbing death of 15-year-old Mattia Ahmet Minguzzi.
Two teenage defendants received the maximum sentence then available, 24 years each.
The January killing of 17-year-old Atlas Çağlayan, allegedly by a 15-year-old following a street dispute, further intensified the debate.
The bill draws on recommendations from a parliamentary commission established to examine why children enter the criminal justice system.
The commission heard testimony on poverty, school dropout, family neglect, drug use and the recruitment of minors by organized crime groups.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) opposed the commission’s punishment proposals in a dissenting opinion last month.
The party argued that heavier sentences, repeat offender rules and increased confinement would move children toward the adult criminal justice system while failing to address poverty, abuse and gaps in social services.
The bill would require convicted children to begin serving their sentences in secure juvenile correctional facilities rather than lower security education houses.
Transfer to an education house would depend on a good conduct assessment.
Justice Ministry data showed 4,563 children in custody as of July 1, including 3,191 in pretrial detention and 1,372 serving sentences.
For murder, sexual offenses, drug manufacturing or trafficking and forming a criminal organization, time served before age 15 would no longer count at double value when calculating eligibility for conditional release.
That provision concerns the administration of sentences and would not abolish all sentencing reductions for children under 15.
The proposal would increase penalties for parents who breach duties under family law when that failure contributes to a child committing homicide or inflicting serious injury.
A person whose careless storage of a firearm allows a child to obtain the weapon could receive one to three years in prison.
The bill would ban children from buying or carrying certain knives and other piercing or bludgeoning instruments.
It would also expand treatment and supervision for children with addiction or mental health needs and require a social inquiry report before prosecutors indict a child under 15.
The legislation would replace the statutory term “child driven to crime” with “child in judicial proceedings,” which supporters argue would better protect the presumption of innocence.
United Nations child rights standards call for detention to be used only as a last resort and for the shortest appropriate period.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has urged governments to abolish all forms of life imprisonment for offenses committed by children, even when release remains possible.