[Reporter’s Notebook] Is the Juvenile Protection Act Working Properly?

There is a saying that it takes a village to raise a child. It means that for a child to grow into a healthy member of society, protection and intervention are needed not only from the family, but also from schools, local communities, and the state. The recent revival of the debate over law-breaching juveniles is closely tied to that idea. As some juvenile crimes have sparked public outrage, calls to lower the current age threshold of under 14 have gained momentum. At the same time, critics argue that changing the age alone has limits, turning the issue into a hot-button topic.
The Social Dialogue Consultative Body, which has been discussing whether to adjust the age threshold for law-breaching juveniles, has recently settled on keeping the current standard. But while the debate focused on whether the age should be lowered or maintained, a more important question was not fully addressed: Is the current juvenile protection system actually working?
The law-breaching juvenile system is not simply a mechanism that exempts young people from criminal responsibility because of their age. Because minors are still physically and mentally immature and are heavily influenced by their environment, the system was originally designed to give them a chance to return to society through protection and rehabilitation rather than punishment. Its core is not about not punishing them, but about how to protect them responsibly and help them change.
In practice, however, that question is not easy to answer. Although the system emphasizes protection and rehabilitation, the infrastructure needed to support it remains insufficient. There are not enough Youth Recovery Support Facilities, which serve as substitute parents for at-risk teenagers in need of care. Juvenile Protective Institutions for Disposition No. 6, which help juveniles who need to be separated from their families and society reintegrate, are limited to just eight locations nationwide. Medical infrastructure and follow-up personnel for juveniles who need treatment and recovery are also lacking.
It is difficult to find a solution to the law-breaching juvenile issue by focusing only on age thresholds while ignoring these realities. That is why the first step is to examine whether our society is truly prepared to guide juveniles toward protection and rehabilitation. If that premise is weakened, keeping the current system could amount to neglect, while lowering the age could become nothing more than a stopgap measure driven by demands for harsher punishment.
The debate must now move toward building a system that does not abandon juveniles, while also not ignoring the suffering of victims. That is the harder task left by the controversy over the age threshold for law-breaching juveniles. The saying that it takes a village to raise a child is also a warning that a village’s indifference can ruin a child. What is needed now is not a change in numbers, but a serious reckoning with society’s responsibility to hold juveniles up again.
welcome@fnnews.com Reporter