What comes to your mind when you think of thieves? Most of you might think of thieves who seized the jewels or who broke into the houses. Those are typical types of thieves but there are more various types of thieves near us.
There are different kinds of thieves we can find near us. One is youth crime. The rate of teenagers stealing other’s property has increased significantly in the 21st century. According to “Statistics Korea”, juvenile delinquency is decreasing these days. But the type of juvenile delinquency is still a problem. Theft is the number one crime that teenagers commit. Statistic Korea has found that 45.1 percent of juvenile delinquency comes from theft. The rate has been increasing from 2009.
In school, stealing is widespread. A student at S high school said that it is so stressful to protect his own property from the other students. They steal school books, pens and even electronic devices. They steal school books because they need them next class and don’t want to get scolded from their teacher of not bringing them. They steal pens, notebooks and all those stationary because they think it is cool. They steal electronic devices, such as mp3s or electronic dictionaries for their own need or to get money by selling those.
How come they can steal other’s property so easily? The reason they steal from others very easily is because of the weak laws. Even though they get caught, they are only required to do some social services and nothing special. Some schools have laws like expulsion from the school, but because of the school’s name or fame, it doesn’t really work.
Those who lose their things cannot do anything if they don’t have any conclusive evidence. Also thieves just throw the stolen things away after using them, so that they won’t get caught as a crime. As a result, the student who lost their belonging could be considered an unprepared student to the teacher, and parents might become very uncomfortable as well.
Theft can’t be ceased if there are no hard laws to eradicate it. Of course the first step to prevent stealing is to keep your own property with caution. But that insensitivity of crime that teenagers (which will lead and change the world in the next few years) have these days needs to be fixed urgently.
