Trial and Execution of Adolescent Offenders in Ecuador

In Ecuador,constitutionally there are two ways of administering justice: ordinary and indigenous, by constitutional mandate, neither of these two ways of punishing punishable offenses have the power to criminally prosecute minors, by these legal provisions and the growth of social problems such as: migration, divorce, unemployment, young transgressors are growing significantly every day in the country.For this reason and with the objective of determining if the common law respects the constitutional and legal mandates regarding adolescent offenders, the present work is carried out.To achieve the purpose, a study of common crimes committed by minors, the sanctions and/or punishments to which they are subjected and the trial process that is applied in the indigenous communities of the rural parishes of the ten cantons of the province of Chimborazo was carried out. For the compilation of the information, a survey was selected and a questionnaire was applied. The results show that in eight of the ten cantons that belong to the province where the investigation was carried out, indigenous justice is applied to adolescent offenders, a procedure that is not considered a punishment or sanctioning penalty, but a healing custom of the body and spirit of the offender who is possessed by evil bodies that incite him to commit acts that go against the principles and good values of the community.