Scope of the KOREAN School Violence Prevention LAW

In Korea, suicide was caused by school violence and it became a social problem. The school violence preven-tion law was enacted to allow students to take action on school violence victims, protect students from harm, and resolve disputes between them. The existing system of school violence was able to regulate school violence, but the Act on the Prevention of School Violence was enacted to more effectively protect the victims and pre-vent school violence. According to the Act on the Prevention of School Violence, each school has its own organi-zation called the Autonomy Committee. Self-governing committees usually conduct school violence prevention activities. In the event of school violence, students should take a neutral standpoint and take initiative measures, protect victims, and make dispute resolution. This is an institution to resolve school violence on its own within the school. However, school violence is a criminal offense, and there is controversy over handling school violence within the school. Especially, there is controversy about the scope of the school violence preven-tion law. In this paper, the main contents of the school violence prevention law are reviewed and the scope of the school violence prevention law is clarified as follows. First, it is the coverage area. According to the School Violence Prevention Act, school violence is violence in and out of school. In other words, it is because school violence can occur not only in the educational activities outside the school but also on the way to and from school. Therefore, it is necessary to interpret it widely based on the relation with the school. Second, it is human scope. The School Violence Prevention Act stipulates that school violence is a “student-directed” act. If the victim is a student, the law must apply regardless of whether the perpetrator is a student or not. Third, it is the action to be applied. In the school violence prevention law, school violence uses the notion of criminal law, such as injury and assault, and it should be interpreted independently in judging it, but it should be interpreted same as the concept of criminal law to prevent unified interpretation and confusion.