A Comparative Study of Status Offenses between Taiwan and United States:Starting from J.Y. Interpretation NO. 664

• Main Authors: Hui-Ying Li, 李慧盈
• Other Authors: 李茂生
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/6txu99

碩士 === 東吳大學 === 法律學系 === 102 === According to the J.Y interpretation NO. 664, the courts who made the judgments that sentenced the status offenses into Detention Centers or juvenile Detention Houses were in conflict with the Constitution and shall be null and void. However, these status offenses who lived in juvenile Detention House or were in conducted with reformatory education which ruled by the courts were released after the interpretation was made, who suddenly lost their shelters and became another recidivism. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the J.Y interpretation NO. 664 was a remedy to the status offenses or a poison to them. In this thesis, a referential data was made by researching the process of social change and the legal systems of the status offense in the U.S.A. First, one reason that the J.Y interpretation NO. 664 overruled the judgments that sentenced the status offenses into Detention Centers or juvenile Detention Houses was the legal certainty of requisite elements of status offense were too vague. However, the definition of a “status offense” was too hard to describe by legal usage, so the judges should have the discretionary power to decide whether a juvenile should sentence to status offense or not. Second, status offenses should be ruled by judicial system or welfare system? Since 1980’s in America, many evidences showed that exclude the status offenses outside the juvenile court did not reduce the crime rate, instead, these status offenses who were treated in worse conditions and conducted another crime again. In Taiwan, the professional ability of the welfare system was not enough, and in the reasons of lacking human resources and compulsory force, the welfare system did not have the capability to rule or judge status offense. Thus, the survey concluded: the judicial system should still have the power to judge and rule the treatments of status offenses, and the welfare system should enforce the treatments under the supervision of judicial system. In conclusion, the legislators should focus on how to use the resources of the nation and the society more efficiently. Furthermore, the legislators should construct a cross-systems facility in the future to accommodate these status offenses, which provide these status offenses a shelter and leading them to the right way. By doing so, we can help these status offenses return to their families or the society as soon as possible, and reach the objective of Juvenile Delinquency Act Article 1:”… the sound growth of juveniles, adjust their environment, and rectify their character.”