15. From Territorial Fights to the Use of Children for the Commission of Criminal Acts in Antioquia, Colombia

Abstract

The violence planted by the head of the Medellin cartel, Pablo Escobar Gaviria, still lags in the life of the Antiochian territory. This well-known person, listed as one of the most famous criminals in the world, did not only rule as a drug lord, but he also commanded the business of life and death, the souls and the wishes of our children and young people throughout the Colombian territory. As a result, in the communes of the city of Medellin and in the surrounding municipalities, a new way of living and interacting culturally gradually arose.

In a context of high crime, the strong and solid Christian foundations coming from old times and which were compatible with a hypocritical way of acting, had already prepared the psyche of younger people and teenagers to think and feel according to the ideology of the capo: “la vida no vale nada” [life is worthless]; “you can get easy money with no effort;” “you can take other people’s life and material goods without problem because of your legal impunity as a minor...” In just under three decades, such social referents as the “parlache” [Colombian criminal slang], the “hitmen” and the “prepayments” became the starting point of an unprecedented phenomenon: the use of minors as absolved criminals who are judged as criminally irresponsible by the Colombian.