(image: Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Oct. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — Fraud offenses committed by teenagers last year recorded the biggest jump in 10 years by rising 16 percent on-year, a judicial report showed Saturday.
According to the 2020 juridical yearbook published recently by the National Court Administration, the number of fraud cases under the juvenile protection system was 3,695, up by 513, or 16.1 percent, from a year ago, the biggest rise since the 2009 global financial crisis when the tally jumped a whopping 84.3 percent from the previous year.
Juvenile protection includes cases that resulted in probation or admissions to juvenile reformatories.
The climb in fraud cases among teenagers appears to be attributable to an increase of online scams, targeting in-game currency and online gift cards.
Juvenile theft also showed an uptick last year at 12,941 from 11,625 in 2018, reversing a downward trend since 2013.
Meanwhile, juvenile sex offenses were found to be on a steady increase for the fourth year in a row.
The number of violations of the Sexual Violence Prevention and Victims Protection Act rose 11 percent to 1,425 last year from 1,276 in 2018. There were 881 cases in 2015.
The number of assault cases also increased from 1,779 to 2,020 over the same period.
The report, however, showed that the number of cases of bodily harm decreased from 1,341 in 2018 to 1,318 last year.
(Yonhap)
