Is It Time to Change Korea’s Criminal Responsibility Law After 5th Grader Murders a Peer?
That is what the Korea Times is recommending:
How young is too young to be prosecuted? In Korea, that legal threshold is 14 years old. But after a series of horrendous crimes committed by minors in recent years, there have been growing calls for change.
Korea Times
The latest controversy erupted last week when a fifth grader was found to have stabbed a peer to death at her grandparents’ home in revenge for “badmouthing” her and her family.
The attacker, who “was removing blood stains” at the crime scene when police arrived, later confessed to the killing and trying to cover it up.
Because she is under 14, she will not face trial. Instead, she was sent to a juvenile review center, where she will stay for about a month for medical observation.
Shocked by the news, hundreds of people have signed online petitions urging authorities to toughen laws against minors’ crimes.
Data from the National Police Agency show that 7,364 people under 14 were sent to juvenile institutions last year, up 12.4 percent from 2015. Four crimes ― murder, robbery, assault and larceny ― accounted for 77 percent of offenses. Sexual crimes numbered 410, up 32 percent during the period.
Under juvenile laws, perpetrators under 14 cannot be sent to prison and those under 19 are exempt from the death penalty or imprisonment longer than 20 years.
You can read more at the link.
This is not a new discussion, sadly. Back in 2005, in Busan at Kaesong Middle School, one boy hit another in the head. The boy who was hit died. Evidently, the courts ruled the incident an accident as the boy who did the hitting graduated from high school just a few years later.
Now I’m imagining whiny brigades of 10 year olds running with scissors… the horror…