• Korean Security Journal
• /
• no.55
• /
• pp.97-116
• /
• 2018

Due to the rapid developments of South Korea, local communities have faced various social pathologies which generated more violent crimes and criminalized younger students. Several horrendous violences, such as a Kangneung Girl assassination assault case in July 2017 and a Busan Girls assault case in September 2017, happened only between young students. This ignited a public uproar and people were more interested in related national policies and voiced for stronger penalties in ways that punish student offenders and abolish the juvenile law. In this respect, various effective policies are needed to prevent the school violence and to eliminate the students' fear of crime. These are expected to create an environment where students could enthusiastically study in a safe environment. Focusing on elementary school students, this study seeks to empirically analyse the effects of their perception of local crime control governance on their fear of crime and, subsequently, to suggest policy implications which could prevent future school violence and juvenile crimes and reduce the students' fear of crime. The results of this study are as follows: First, the analysis of the general fear of local crime control governance and the fear of crime showed that elementary school students' trust in police officers had a significant effect on the general fear. Second, the analysis of the local fear of crime control governance and the fear of crime highlighted that their trust in the police, social ties, intimacy between the police and residents had a significant effect on the specific fear. Therefore, this study is applicable in reality in that it can contribute to the prevention of school violence and reduction of fear of crime by constructing local crime control governance.