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224. The Committee recommended that the minimum criminal age be raised to 12 years in
the General Comment No. 10 (2007) and urged the countries having employed a higher age
standard not to lower it.
2) Questions
225. Is lowering the age of criminal minors to strengthen punishment for children an
effective measure to reduce crime rates or recidivism rates of the child?
226. What is the comprehensive juvenile justice policy for preventing violent crimes and
repeated crimes related to children?
Issue 61. Medical Service for Juvenile Inmates
1) Current status
227. The NHRCK visited the juvenile detention centers in 2015 and has expressed the
opinion to the Minister of Justice that medical youth detention centers should be newly
established to improve medical treatments in the youth protection facilities for healthy growth
and improvement of mental health for protected juveniles. The government has mentioned
that it is planning to establish a new medical youth detention centers by 2020 (para. 186).
2) Questions
228. What is the progress of the establishment of medical youth detention centers? Is there
a plan to secure budget required for the establishment?
Issue 62. Non-inclusiveness of the Period of Protective Disposition in
Youth Detention Center: Period of Pre-trial Detention and Period of
Entrust to the Juvenile Classification
1) Current status
229. The Criminal Law stipulates that the days of detention before the court ruling shall be
counted in a jail sentence. However, as the protective disposition based on Article 32 of the
Juvenile Act is not a form of imprisonment, the time that a child spent under pre-trial
detention or the period of entrust to the Juvenile Classification (two months at the most) are
not included in the detention period of protective disposition in areas such as youth detention
centers. The protective disposition in youth detention center is minimum one month and two