Netflix's 'Teach You a Lesson' reignites juvenile justice debate: Korean teens weigh in
Delinquent youths featured in Episode 6 of the Netflix drama "Teach You a Lesson" speed through the streets in a stolen car. In the series, the characters exploit their status as juvenile offenders who are exempt from criminal punishment even when they commit crimes. Courtesy of Netflix
“But as juvenile offenders, aren’t you meant to learn right from wrong by experiencing things? Isn’t it the nation’s way of giving you a learning opportunity? I’ll stop once I’m no longer underage ... I promise, really.”
In a scene from the Netflix Korean drama "Teach You a Lesson," a middle school student involved in serious crimes responds with a sneer.
“Arrest and lock me up, only if you can.”
Technically, he is both right and wrong. In Korea, juvenile offenders — more precisely minors under the age of 14 — are not subject to criminal punishment, such as fines or prison terms, even when accused of serious crimes such as drug distribution or car theft.
Under the Juvenile Act, they are instead placed under “protective disposition,” with the harshest measure being confinement in a juvenile detention center for up to two years. So, strictly speaking, they can still face legal consequences — just not criminal punishment.
That does not mean the rage-inducing scene from the drama is pure fabrication, however. In 2020, when a group of middle school students killed a college student while driving a rented vehicle, they claimed they were immune from legal consequences because they were juvenile offenders, causing a public uproar.
In that sense, "Teach You a Lesson" was not so much an exercise in incendiary imagination as a reminder of real-life cases that sparked public outrage — and, with them, renewed calls to lower the age threshold for juvenile offenders so that such adolescents could face criminal punishment.
Earlier in February, President Lee Jae Myung addressed the issue, saying there was “overwhelming public consensus” to lower the age defining juvenile offenders by at least one year. He instructed relevant ministries to undergo public consultation and come to a conclusion within two months.
Much to the administration’s dissatisfaction, a social dialogue consultative body organized by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family recommended two months later that the current rules be maintained. The government, citing public sentiment, has not backed down and is reportedly working on a compromise revision.
Under the proposed rules, the age threshold for juvenile offenders would be lowered from the current 14 to 13, but only for certain crimes classified as severe, such as murder and sexual assault. However, the proposal has raised concerns among experts and the international community, and for unexplained reasons, the government postponed submitting the matter to the Cabinet meeting that had originally been scheduled for June 30.
Gender Equality and Family Minister Won Min-kyung, second from left in the front row, speaks at the fourth plenary meeting of the social dialogue consultative body on the age of criminal minors at Government Complex Seoul in Jongno-gu, central Seoul, April 30. Newsis
As politicians and government officials remain divided over whether the age threshold for juvenile offenders should be lowered by a year, the voices of teenagers who would be directly affected by the law have remained largely unheard.
For that reason, Hankook Ilbo interviewed five middle and high school students about their views on the matter. Their responses went beyond a simple yes-or-no stance, touching on multiple dimensions of the issue, including the purpose of punishment, standards for victim protection and criminal accountability, and the way society views young people.
Juvenile Act seen as shielding offenders from consequences
One of the main arguments made by those who support lowering the age threshold is that the juvenile justice system is dysfunctional — granting undue leniency to offenders while failing to protect victims. Responses from the students echoed that sentiment.
Oh Yoon-ji, a 13-year-old first-year student at Sunjung Middle School in Seoul, said what matters more is the pain suffered by victims and the severity of the crime, not the age of the offender.
“If the victim struggles to return to normal life, the offender should face consequences just as serious, whether they are a juvenile or not,” Oh said. “At school, we get penalty points for breaking rules and are punished when caught cheating on exams. Offenders, too, should be held accountable regardless of age.”
Such concerns have in fact been raised consistently over the years. Critics argued that while the purpose of the Juvenile Act is to promote the sound development of children, it has fallen short by failing to give sufficient consideration to the perspective of victims while extending leniency to offenders in the name of rehabilitation.
If the law leaves many victims with the impression that only offenders are being protected, critics say, then it needs to be improved regardless of whether the age threshold for juveniles is lowered.
Another frequently raised criticism concerns the practice of keeping juvenile court records and rulings undisclosed, as well as the broad discretion given to presiding judges in determining the scope of access to those records and copies.
“The rationale behind the principle of nondisclosure is understandable, but it leaves victims isolated from their own cases, unable even to know what kind of punishment the offender received,” said attorney Yoo Ga-young, a court-appointed victims’ attorney at the Seoul Western Branch of the Korea Legal Aid Corp., at a forum held in April on institutional measures to supplement the age standard for juvenile offenders.
“At the very least, victims should be guaranteed the right to make statements, the right to inspect and copy parts of the record and the right to be informed of the outcome of the disposition, so that they can meaningfully participate in their own cases.”
A scene from the Netflix drama "Teach You a Lesson" / Courtesy of Netflix
International community recommends setting criminal responsibility at 14
One of the most contentious questions is whether 13, one year below the current age threshold for juvenile offenders, can be regarded as an age at which a child is fully capable of recognizing their actions as criminal and bearing responsibility for the consequences.
International standards suggest the answer is no. Reflecting the latest findings in child development and neuroscience, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child has urged states not to set the minimum age of criminal responsibility below 14, a benchmark that international bodies strongly recommend.
This means if Korea moves ahead with a conditional lowering of the age threshold for juvenile offenders, it would be out of step with international standards.
Students, however, showed diverging opinions on the standard.
“By the age of 13, a person knows that murder and sexual assault are wrong,” said Kim Mi-roo, an 18-year-old third-year student at Seoul Design High School. “If someone commits such heinous crimes, strong rehabilitation is necessary.”
Others also argued that children of that age are already capable of distinguishing right from wrong and should therefore be held criminally accountable.
“By the upper elementary grades, students already know what is right and what is wrong. Excusing an offender simply because they are young is, if anything, more harmful,” said Yang, a 14-year-old second-year middle school student in Seoul.
Yet some students appeared opposing lowering the age threshold, arguing that it amounts to a double standard — one that places greater responsibility on adolescents without granting them any new rights in return.
“When students call for the voting age to be lowered, people dismiss them, saying, ‘What do kids know about politics?’” said Jang Hyo-ju, a 15-year-old second-year student at Hansung Girls’ Middle School. “So it feels contradictory that they now say 13-year-olds are mature enough to face criminal punishment.”
Criticism also emerged over media coverage that exaggerates crimes committed by teenagers and fuels fear and hostility toward students.
“There is a flood of sensational stories about teens committing all kinds of terrible crimes, and those stories are amplified by algorithms and spread across short-form content platforms,” Jang said.
“But the number of teenagers who actually commit such crimes is small. In reality, most students are terrified even by the prospect of being referred to a school bullying committee.”
gettyimagesbank
Society and state's responsibility
Some students argued that lowering the age threshold for juvenile offenders is merely an easy way out rather than a real solution. Moon Sung-ho, a first-year student at Choongam High School, raised the question in more pointed terms: “Do the state and society really believe they bear no responsibility when a middle school student ends up committing a crime?”
He went on to argue that criminal punishment is, at best, a half-measure.
“It feels more like the state shirking its duty — locking teenagers away and pretending the problem has been solved.”
At heart, their argument was that simply lowering the age threshold and expanding the pool of those subject to punishment is not the answer, and that solutions should instead be sought from the standpoint of preventing juvenile crime.
Experts say the current debate ultimately amounts to little more than a short-term fix. At a policy forum held in March, Kim Dong-geon, a presiding judge at Seoul Family Court, said cases involving juvenile offenders have been rising overall as new forms of crime emerge.
“The rise can be attributed to socioeconomic changes such as the expansion of unmanned stores and automated systems, an increase in legal disputes due to institutional changes in the education system, the wider use of electronic devices and younger access to social media,” he said.
Kim also noted that serious crimes committed by adolescents aged 14 and older — who are already subject to criminal punishment — have not declined either, suggesting that lowering the age threshold for juvenile offenders would be insufficient to curb the rise in such cases.
In Kim’s view, juvenile crime should not be treated simply as individual deviance and addressed through punishment alone. Instead, it should be approached as a social problem requiring the combined efforts of schools, families and local communities.
This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.