The spate of heinous crimes committed by teens in recent years is driving the public to call for young offenders to be strictly punished under a revised Juvenile Law, the spirit of which now focuses instead on correcting troubled youth.
The ruling coalition hastily arranged deliberations on a bill to revise the law in the Diet this month, following the Golden Week fatal bus hijacking in Saga Prefecture and stabbing death of an elderly woman in Aichi Prefecture -- both crimes committed by 17-year-old boys.
The government-proposed bill, however, had been put on the political back-burner since last year due to what the ruling parties initially claimed was a lack of time to fully debate the legislation.