2) Law Breaching Minors and the Issues of Lowering the Age of Criminal Liability A) Controversy Over Law Breaching Minors and Lowering of Age for Criminal Minors The Criminal Act of Korea defines ‘criminal minor’ as a person who is physically and mentally immature and who has no possibility of being criticized for committing a criminal act even if he/she has committed a criminal act, and thus cannot be recognized as competent for criminal responsibility, and is under fourteen years of age. Moreover, children between the ages of 10 and 14 who commit acts in violation of the Juvenile Act are not subjected to criminal punishment,(Article 9 of the Criminal Act) so-called “law breaching minors,” and they are subjected to 10 protective detention of juvenile under Article 32 of the Juvenile Act. The global trend is to have a special treatment procedures that are independent of the general criminal procedures for child delinquencies and crimes. However, in the case of juveniles in their early and mid-teens, the law breaching minors, there have been constant assertion that it is unfair not to receive criminal punishment even if they have committed a crime, or that the standard age for the criminal minors is too high. In Sep. 2022, 16 people, including 2 people in their 20s, were arrested in Daejeon for recruiting law breaching minors to commit theft. They took advantage of the fact that the law breaching minors are not prosecuted, and they recruited and involved them in breaking into jewelry stores and stealing precious metals. At the time of the arrest, one of the criminals, who mistook his birthday and refused to testify, thinking he was a law breaching minor, but later confessed to the crime when he learned that he was subjected to punishment. According to the National Police Agency, over the past five years, the number of cases sent to the Juvenile Department of law breaching minors increased from 7,533 in 2017 to 10,915 in 2021, and the number of thefts committed by law breaching minors increased from 4,073 in 2017 to 5,460 in 2021. However, the number of violent crimes, such as murder, robbery, arson, and rape, remains at 400 to 450 per year. In May 2022, the government revealed a plan to adjust the age standard for law breaching minors as part of the ‘Yoon Seok-yeol Administration’s 110th State Affairs Task’ and is pushing to amend the law. Currently, an amendment to the Criminal Act to lower the age of 125