While we support the dismissals of officers who commit violations, we believe that they should also be prosecuted in civilian courts for these crimes. Promises to restrain the military have yet to bear tangible fruit. 9 Measuring impunity presents some difficulties, since many children refuse to testify against their attackers out of fear or a conviction that state agents will not be punished. In addition, forensic investigations into murders are often incompetent. This report would not be complete without a recognition of the fact that children are also among Colombia's most prominent killers.
Children belong to the gangs that prowl urban centers, assaulting pedestrians and hijacking cars.
Recruited and trained by drug traffickers, children make excellent assassins, since they learn quickly and according to law cannot be punished as severely as adults. 10 To expand their urban base, guerrillas have also turned to children to form militias. Human rights groups believe these militias have ordered children to carry out killings of other youths accused of theft or drug use in many of Colombia's tugurios , or slums, in order to impose a kind of deadly moral order in areas they seek to control. Yet we believe the state shares some responsibility for these murders as well. To rectify an antiquated and ineffective juvenile justice system, in 1990 the state put into effect a new legal Code for Minors for child killers as well as abandoned and abused children and child vagrants, drug abusers, and prostitutes.