Legislative Impact, Political Change, and Juvenile Detention
Legislative Impact, Political Change, and Juvenile Detention
Comparing South Korea and Japan
This chapter assesses the impact of legislative change and political change on juvenile justice policy in Japan and South Korea. In Japan, the changes that invite analysis are legislation that shifted policies and procedures in criminal justice and in juvenile justice over the period after the mid-1990s. This was an era of economic recession and modestly expanding crime in Japan. The ruling political party was under pressure as the economic decline continued and public dissatisfaction with the government grew. One result of this situation was significant “get tough” measures directed at juvenile crime and its punishments in 2000 and 2007. The major shift examined in South Korea was the replacement of a long-serving series of right-wing political presidents with popularly elected presidents from left-leaning political parties in the decade after 1997. While there were no major legislative changes in either criminal or juvenile justice, there was ample room for discretionary powers of judges, prosecutors, and administrator to make changes in practice that did not require any shift in formal statutory law.
Keywords: juvenile justice system, youth justice, juvenile courts, political change, legislative change, juvenile justice reform
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