Number of juveniles arrested, prosecuted on the rise

The number of juvenile delinquents arrested and prosecuted in 2022 had risen substantially from two years earlier, according to the White Paper on Procuratorial Work of Minors (2022), issued by the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Thursday.

According to the document, the number of juvenile suspects arrested increased by 30.2 percent in 2022 from 2020, while those prosecuted climbed 42.8 percent over the same period.

Minors suspected of offering assistance to telecom and online crimes increased significantly, with the number of those investigated soaring from 236 in 2020 to 5,474 in 2022, it said.

On the other hand, the proportion of drug crimes committed by children, the number of campus bullying and violent crimes and the rate of reoffending all continued to decrease.

Procuratorial organs strictly implemented the policy of "education, reform and rescue" and combined punitive measures with precise help and educational measures to treat juvenile offenders and save them from a life of crime, the document said.

In 2022, procuratorates also approved the non-prosecution policy for 26,161 juvenile offenders and initiated public lawsuits against 820 minors for violating regulations or recommitting crimes during the conditional non-prosecution period, it said.

The SPP also promoted the construction of special schools and specialized education, where juvenile offenders with serious behaviors could receive correctional education, it said.

In addition, procuratorates have deepened the centralized and unified handling of juvenile crimes by examining the necessity of detention, supervising the regulatory activities of minors in custody and overseeing community correction to ensure assistance and educational measures could always be accessible, it said.