• Journal of the Korean Society of Child Welfare
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• no.56
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• pp.69-99
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• 2016

Taking the perspective of children's welfare, this study aimed at critically analyzing the system of notification disposition which institutionalized children have experienced. Notification disposition is a juvenile justice process that, when a child (10 th 18 years old ) has been delinquent or is at risk for delinquency, is initiated without investigation or prosecution procedures by direct notification to a judge from the caregivers, school principals, chief probation officers, or directors of child care institutions. The data used in the analysis included case records of probation offices, and court sentencing documents of juvenile protective dispositions. Results showed that notification cases were initiated by directors of child shelters/care institutions. The most common reasons of notification were theft, runaway, physical violence, drinking, and smoking. Furthermore, there were more controversial reasons, such as "bad influence on another institutionalized children", "showing no remorse", "no sense of guilt"and "challenge of rearing in institutions" Based on the results, we discussed three problematic aspects of the direct notification system by directors of childcare institutions : (1) too much reliance on the judicature judgment of juvenile court; (2) less stability of the judicial status of notified children, and (3) inadequacies of the notifying eligibility for directors of child care institutions.