(narrative) This article seeks to reflect on the Uruguayan debate on public security focused on juvenile criminal offences, in the context of the presentation of a project proposing to lower the age of criminal liability from eighteen to sixteen years presented by plebiscite in 2014, and the ambiguities raised at legislative level by the left in government since 2005, which is discussed between the narrative of repression and that of social rehabilitation. A debate is also proposed on social rehabilitation in encroachment contexts.