White paper on crime 2017 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

Juveniles are categorized based on age, level of criminal tendency, mental and/or physical condition, etc. The types of juvenile training schools are as follows:

• (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 above-mentioned 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.