'Criminal Minors' No Longer Exempt: Authorities Send Repeat Offenders to Protective Facilities

[Anchor]

Elementary school students have been apprehended by police after stealing a father's car and driving without a license for over four hours. It was discovered that one of the students involved had been caught just one week earlier after being involved in an accident while riding in another stolen vehicle. Instead of releasing the children to their parents, the police have decided to send them all to protective facilities.

Reporter Yoo Soo-hwan has the story.

[Reporter]

A white sedan climbs onto the sidewalk, moves slowly, and comes to a stop in front of a crosswalk.

To the surprise of onlookers, the individuals who open the doors and step out are elementary school students, shorter than the car itself.

On May 20, elementary school students identified as A and B secretly took a car belonging to B's father from an apartment underground parking lot in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, and drove without a license.

They drove for 60 kilometers over the course of four hours, traveling from Cheonan to Dangjin.

Police, who were dispatched following a report from a guardian that their son had stolen the car and fled, tracked the students down and apprehended them in front of an internet cafe in Dangjin.

It was revealed that student A, who engaged in the dangerous unlicensed driving, had been caught just a week earlier for another vehicle theft in Cheonan.

The vehicle that A and others had stolen at that time had been driven at high speeds through a school zone before crashing into a guardrail.

At that time, the police obtained an emergency escort warrant for student C, who was driving the car, and sent him to a protective facility. However, student A, who was only a passenger, was sent home because he is under the age of 14 and classified as a "criminal minor" (a minor who cannot be held criminally liable).

However, after the students committed a similar offense just one week later, the police decided to send both A and B to a protective facility, just like C.

[Oh Seon-a / Chief of Women and Youth Affairs, Cheonan Dongnam Police Station: We determined that there was a very high risk of these criminal minors being exposed to further crimes in the future, and we concluded that custody under their guardians alone would not be sufficient for proper protection, supervision, and management.]

With the recent popularity of the Netflix series "True Education," social interest in the issue of criminal minors has grown. As a result, investigative agencies are increasingly applying for emergency escort warrants when they determine that a minor, even if under the age of criminal responsibility, poses a high risk of recidivism and cannot be properly managed by their guardians.

A lawyer who previously served as a juvenile court judge at a family court stated in a phone call with SBS, "Unlicensed driving by criminal minors should be viewed as a more serious matter than when committed by adults," adding, "Releasing them to their guardians is not a panacea; firm and serious disciplinary measures are essential."

Reported by Kim Kyung-han (TJB) | Video edited by Park Ji-in | Footage courtesy of Netflix
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.