4 Flow of treatment procedure pertaining to criminal disposition

(1) Prosecution and criminal trials
  Public prosecutors that have received referrals of cases from family courts must institute public prosecutions when suspected offenses have been proved to have taken place.
  A prosecuted juvenile is subject to the same procedure as adults. However, a court shall transfer the case to a family court when considering it appropriate to place the juvenile defendant under protective measures as a result of a trial. An offender who was under the age of 18 at the time of the offense shall have life imprisonment imposed even if death penalty is appropriate for the offense. Similarly, imprisonment with or without work for 10 years or more but 15 years or less may be imposed instead of life imprisonment. Furthermore, when imprisonment with or without work for the maximum period not less than three years should be imposed, an indeterminate sentence (where the minimum and maximum term of imprisonment are defined; the minimum term and the maximum term must not exceed five years and ten years, respectively) within the scope of the penalty may be imposed.

(2) Execution of sentence
  Juveniles who were sentenced to imprisonment with or without work may serve their sentences in a juvenile prison or a segregated area in a prison. Any juvenile under 16 may serve his/her sentence at a juvenile training school until he/she reaches 16 years of age. In this case, even if the juvenile was sentenced to imprisonment with work, he/she will not be subject to work during this period and will instead receive correctional education at a juvenile training school.

(3) Parole and probation
  A juvenile who was sentenced to life imprisonment is eligible for parole after serving seven years (those who were under 18 at the time of committing the offenses and thus were sentenced to life imprisonment instead of death penalty are eligible for parole after serving ten years) and those who were under 18 at the time of committing the crime, and thus, were sentenced to imprisonment for a definite term instead of life imprisonment are eligible for parole after serving three years, and those who had adjudicated an indeterminate sentence are eligible for parole after serving one third of the minimum term of the sentence. Those who are released on parole are placed under probation during the remainder of the sentence.
  Those who are granted suspension of execution of sentence with probationary supervision are also placed under supervision during the period of suspension.