White paper on crime 2016 Part3/Chapter2/Section4/2

2 Treatments provided in juvenile training schools

The treatments of juveniles at juvenile training schools were based on the former Juvenile Training Schools Act which was enacted in 1948. The new Juvenile Training Schools Act was enacted in 2014, which revised school categories by abolishing conventional age groups and provided a new correctional education program (The Act entered into force on June 1, 2015).

(1) Types of juvenile training schools

The former four types of juvenile training schools were: Primary, Middle, Advanced, and Medical Juvenile Training School. The new Juvenile Training Schools Act then reorganized these into new types of four schools, as described below. Juveniles categorized based on age, level of criminal tendency, and mental and/or physical condition etc. are committed to the respective type of school:

• (i) Type 1Juveniles under protective measures of the age group roughly from 12 to under 23 and without severe disability in their mental/physical condition (excluding those categorized as type 2);
• (ii) Type 2Juveniles under protective measures of the age group roughly from 16 to under 23 and without severe disability in their mental/physical condition, and with advanced criminal tendencies;
• (iii) Type 3Juveniles under protective measures of the age group roughly from 12 to under 26 and with severe disability in their mental/physical condition; and
• (iv) Type 4Juveniles who are committed to the juvenile training school for execution of punishment.

(2) Correctional education programs

The former treatments at juvenile training schools were provided according to three treatment programs: General short-term, Special short term and Long-term treatment program. The programs included several “treatment courses.”

The new Act reorganized these programs and courses into correctional education programs which correspond to the aforementioned new four types of schools to be able to provide more systematic correctional education to suit a group of juveniles who shares certain common characteristics such as age, mental/physical condition, level of criminal tendency, social skills and other circumstances.

The type of juvenile training school is specified by the family court with the decision to refer the juvenile to a juvenile training school. The superintendent of the juvenile classification home specifies the appropriate juvenile training school in consideration of the differences in correctional education programs assigned to different schools. Taking into account these opinions from the family court and the juvenile classification home, the director of the juvenile training school specifies which correctional education program the juvenile is to take. It is to be noted that if the family court, upon referring the juvenile to juvenile training school, specified the school type to be Type 1 and acknowledges the period of correctional education to be a short one and advised the school as such, the school is to assign either a short-term compulsory education program or a short-term social adaptation program for the juvenile.