일본 소년법의 개정과정에 관한 고찰

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

From 2017 until now, there have been many brutal incidents such as murders by teenagers in Korea. Because of this, public opinion to abolish or revise the juvenile law which has been lenient to the teenagers, is dominant. Those who insist on the abolishment or revision of the Juvenile Act argue that the purpose of criminal punishment is to defend society from crimes and the juvenile delinquency is becoming increasingly cruel. On the other hand, those who oppose the abolition of the Juvenile Law argue that extreme measures such as the abolition of the Juvenile Law could do more harm than good, and should be more carefully approached with the reconsideration of the ideology of the juvenile law.
In Japan, however, since the late 1990s, public opinion to revise the juvenile law became predominant with the criticism on the lenient punishment of the juvenile law, when a abusive and brutal crimes of teenagers continued to arise. Consequently, the Juvenile act was partially amended in 2000, and then three(3) additional revisions were made until 2014. Although there are other opinions, it seems that the Japanese Juvenile law turned towards the direction of severe punishment for juvenile crimes and juvenile trials became more alike the criminal trial.
Meanwhile, the South Korean public's demand for severe punishment of juvenile crimes is similar to the what occurred during the revision of Japanese Juvenile Law in 2000. Even though the argument for abolishing juvenile law has not been subsided, it is likely that a revision, rather than abolition of the law, will take place considering the ideology of the juvenile law.
Therefore, it is meaningful to see in what ground that the revision of juvenile law took place, and what was discussed and criticized in Japan. This is because it will be something to be taken into reference when we discuss about abolishing or revising Korean Juvenile law in the future.