Three years ago, a horrifying photo of a kneeling, blood-covered 14-year-old went viral on Facebook. Originally posted on a page for anonymous submissions, the photo was reportedly taken in Busan by a girl of the same age, one of the four perpetrators. CCTV footage of the assault displayed the usage of a chair, a glass bottle, and a steel frame at a vacant lot, and was aired on various media platforms. Unfortunate cases like this raise a heated debate over whether the current Juvenile Act of South Korea should be revised in order to enlighten youths to the repercussions of their ill-considered acts, which often cause victims to suffer.
The present law for juveniles, set for people under the age of 18, states that maximum detention periods at the reformatory is two years, and in murder cases, imprisonment will last 15 years at most; minors are not given criminal records. This is quite appalling in that adults who commit similar crimes would receive much heavier retribution in the legal realm. The Juvenile Code was designed to shelter youths, but by excessively “protecting” them from their legal charges, it is, in fact, destroying them. By making amendments to these lax punishments, offenders will better understand the unforgettable traumas victims will have to live through their entire lives. A government index explains that young criminals are over two times more likely to commit crimes again than adults. This is plausibly due to the indulgent penalties that fail to reinforce remorse on juvenile delinquents.
In an effort to reduce the growing number of young offenders, many have called to repeal the Juvenile Act. In the span of multiple weeks, 16 high school students in Daejeon sexually assaulted a mentally disabled teenager. The felons were given a mere year of probation and just one period of re-education. Moreover, one offender was accepted into a prestigious university in Seoul, without a criminal record, recommended as a model student. A change that may strongly discourage a youngster’s misdeed is leaving a criminal record for all committed crimes, regardless of their age. Under the United States’ system, school officials, legal guardians, as well as state authorities have access to confidential criminal records of young offenders. The dissimilarity between the legal systems of the U.S. and South Korea displays a significant difference in the juvenile crime rate in which the former appears to have a lower figure. Hence, a successful approach to amend the 1995 Juvenile Act may be to have criminal records, despite ages.
A petition to either abolish or reform the juvenile law, signed by over 109,000 supporters, shows the high demand for change. Cases like the Busan assault can never be considered a special case as countless other infamous crimes, such as the Miryang gang rape incident, have also been committed by minors. In sum, revising the current Juvenile Act will most likely bring a positive change to South Korea regarding the attitudes of the young offenders.
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