“I’m a Juvenile Offender”: Elementary Students Arrested After Repeated Car Thefts and Joyrides

An SUV speeds through a school zone.

The vehicle continues to drive at high speed before crashing into a guardrail and coming to a stop.

The car door opens, and the driver gets out and flees the scene.

The driver was a 12-year-old elementary school student, identified as A.

On the morning of May 13, student A and two other elementary school students stole an unlocked SUV from an apartment underground parking lot in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, and drove away.

The dangerous joyride ended only after the vehicle crashed into a guardrail. Student A, who was driving, was apprehended by police two and a half hours later, while the 12-year-old students B and C, who were passengers and fled with him, were caught eight hours after the crime.

While the primary offender, A, was immediately placed in a juvenile classification center, the other students were released to their parents after questioning because they were under the age of criminal responsibility, known as "juvenile offenders" (under 14).

However, just one week later, on May 20, student B stole his friend's father's car and got behind the wheel again.

With a friend in the passenger seat, B drove without a license at high speeds from Cheonan to Dangjin before abandoning the car and fleeing, only to be arrested at a nearby PC cafe.

As the same car theft and unlicensed driving were repeated within a week, the police, considering the severity of the situation, took the unusual step of requesting "emergency escort warrants" for the juvenile offenders.

The court also accepted the police's assessment that there was a high risk of recidivism.

Once an emergency escort warrant is issued, it is possible to detain individuals in juvenile facilities even if they are under 14 years old.

Consequently, all three elementary school students involved in the crimes, including B, who committed the additional offense, were separated from their parents and forcibly detained in juvenile protective facilities.

They will remain in these facilities while undergoing evaluations and will eventually receive juvenile protective measures.

Experts point out that simply releasing juvenile offenders with a warning or returning them to their parents is not an effective solution.

The police plan to continue responding strictly to crimes committed by juvenile offenders by actively requesting emergency escort warrants in cases where the matter is serious, the risk of recidivism is high, or it is determined that parental supervision is inadequate.

Reported by Lee Hyun-young | Video by Na Hong-hee | Graphics by Lee Jung-ju | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.