A Study on the Improvement of Criminal Policy for Prevention of Juvenile Prevention Crime
Authors:   Korean Association of Public Safety and Criminal Justice, Kim Bong-Soo 
Published: April 2024

According to a media article, the Ministry of Justice announced a “comprehensive countermeasure against juvenile crimes” in October last year and announced legislation to revise the Juvenile Act to lower the age limit for young people from the current age of 14 to the age of 13. Since then, the National Assembly has also issued a series of bills, including criminal penalties for violent crimes. However, amendments to the Juvenile Act have been pending in the National Assembly for nearly a year. This is in conflict with the opposition that it violates the human rights of juvenile offenders and that it is difficult to expect the effect of preventing crime.
In October last year, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea expressed opposition, saying that the lowering of the age of young people is contrary to the perspective of returning and recovering boys required by the UN (United Nations) international human rights standards and is not desirable as an alternative to crime prevention and recidivism. In response, the Ministry of Justice said, “Even if the age standard for juvenile is lowered, minor juvenile crimes will be sent to the juvenile department as they are now,” and explained, “Even if it is actually legislated, only violent crimes such as rape and robbery will be punished,” but it has not even been discussed. Some say that the degree of development of teenagers has increased compared to the past due to access to media, and that discussions on countermeasures should be made quickly.
As we saw earlier, many of the posts were confirmed to be the work of teenagers, and the desire to be recognized as heroes within a group that mainly feels friendly as an online meme seeking stimulation and fun and a trend was revealed. This is very similar to terrorism in that socially isolated criminals carry out indiscriminate attacks against an unspecified number of people as an expression of anger toward others.
Recently, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the National Police Agency held a meeting of related organizations to strengthen the response to the crime of abnormal motives (aka 'don't ask'). The meeting was prepared to discover additional measures and seek ways to strengthen cooperation with related ministries, recognizing that the public's anxiety is high due to a series of abnormal motive crimes such as the recent deadly weapon rampage, and to share measures to respond to abnormal motive crimes by each ministry, gather opinions on ways to cooperate and support the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, and discuss issues such as expanding crime prevention infrastructure such as security cameras (CCTV), expanding joint response models for mentally ill people, and supporting autonomous crime prevention activities. Boys' pre-announcement crimes are not yesterday or today because they have caused difficulties in their work in the past due to indiscriminate prank calls by investigative agencies. However, it seems that crime of don't ask and crime of abnormal motivation, which is not just a prank phone call, should no longer be ignored in our society.