Hou backs review of juvenile justice law after student's stabbing death

Taipei, Dec. 28 (CNA) Kuomintang (KMT) presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) on Thursday called for a review of Taiwan's main juvenile justice law following the stabbing to death of a ninth-grade student at a New Taipei junior high school.

Hou, a former top police official who is also mayor of New Taipei, said in a Facebook post on Thursday that he supported conducting a review of the Juvenile Justice Act to look for potential "shortcomings."

Specifically, the government should reference similar laws in Japan and South Korea and evaluate Taiwan's current age and sentencing regulations for minors who commit serious crimes, Hou said.

Hou also proposed expanding resources to curb campus bullying and offering more guidance and support to children coming from troubled homes.

He also said Taiwanese society needs to confront the risk of criminal gangs operating on and recruiting students from school campuses by imposing harsh penalties against anyone implicated in such crimes.

The incident Hou was referring to happened on Monday and started during the school's noon break when a female student went to an adjacent classroom and ended up arguing with a male student who asked her to leave.

The girl reportedly angrily left and asked a male friend to confront the other student.

After returning to the neighboring classroom, the two male students started to argue, and when that turned physical, the girl's friend pulled out a switchblade knife and stabbed the other student multiple times in the chest and neck, leaving him without vital signs.

Despite efforts to save him, he died of his injuries late Tuesday night.

According to local media reports, the stabber had already had multiple run-ins with the law for crimes including causing bodily harm, and had only recently been released from a juvenile detention center.

According to Taiwan's Criminal Code, the longest people can be sentenced to jail for crimes they commit as minors is 30 years.

Under Article 81 of the Juvenile Justice Act, meanwhile, minors who "repent" for their crimes are eligible for release after serving one-third of their sentence, meaning that a minor serving a 30-year term could be freed after 10 years.

Debate over bag searches

Meanwhile, as rumors have circulated online that the boy who committed the stabbing routinely brought a knife to school, a national teachers' union said Wednesday that Ministry of Education (MOE) rules make even simple interventions, such as searching a student's backpack, unfeasible.

According to the MOE's guidelines for schools on the setting of disciplinary measures, students' private belongings can only be searched if there is proof or probable cause that they have committed a crime or possess items prohibited on campus.

If a search is conducted, there must be at least two teachers, student representatives, or parents present, and the entire process must be filmed, the guidelines state.

Responding to criticism of the guidelines, however, Feng Chiao-lan (馮喬蘭), director of the Humanistic Education Foundation, said that even conducting universal bag searches at schools would not help prevent violence.

Conflicts on campus typically stem from internal factors, or problems in a person's behavior, under which circumstances any item can be used as a weapon, Feng said, in a video provided to the media on Thursday.

For that reason, prevention efforts should also focus on addressing students' emotions and behavior, such as ensuring that there is sufficient funding for school counseling centers and other forms of support, Feng said.

Education Minister Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) said Thursday that his ministry was planning to review the evaluation procedures and guidance services for students returning to school from the juvenile justice system.