Prosecutor has first right to choose procedure of Juvenile case between criminal procedure and that of protection. Also prosecutor can impose various conditions to juvenile suspension of prosecution if there is necessity for proper guidance (Juvenile Law Article 49-3).
The conditional suspension of prosecution for juvenile offenders is diversion to minimize social labelling by imposing various community treatment not by institutional treatment based on potential for change of juvenile. It is widely used for adult criminals since it had started in 1978 at Gwangjoo. There are three types of juvenile conditional suspension of prosecution according to the contents of condition: suspension of prosecution with supervision of volunteer for juvenile crime protection, suspension of prosecution with education of juvenile delinquency protection center, and suspension of prosecution with supervision of probation officer.
All the decisions whether to prosecute, impose suspension of prosecution or conditional suspension of prosecution completely depend on the discretion of prosecutor. Although there are related provisions on practical guidance for juvenile case of Prosecutors’ Office and instructions of Department of Justice, impartiality is under criticism because target selection is usually depending on prosecutor’s discretion.
In this sense, it is needed to uate how the three types of conditional suspension of prosecution programs in operation carried out the purpose of the system. First, with respect to guidance program from volunteer for juvenile crime protection, it is highly regarded from a perspective of community services using private resources. However, there are specialty problems because the way of intervention and the extent of understanding are different from individual volunteers. Second, juvenile delinquency protection center has a variety of delinquency prevention programs but the efficacy is also under criticism in that the period of education is too short because of school curriculum. Third, probation office has nothing but face to face instruction of once or twice a month.
It is hard to find countries empowering prosecutor’s wide discretion. In Germany Juvenile Court Act(Jugendgerichtsgesetz §45 ①) provides suspension of proceeding of prosecutor but details of diversion are provided in administrative rules of each states. Involvement of prosecutors in US is limited in scope because most juvenile cases are treated in Juvenile Court. In UK, the extent of intervention of prosecutor has been expanding since introduction of Crown Prosecution System in 1985. Also prosecutors focusing on juvenile case are needed to have specialty and meet the requirements. Prosecutors in Japan has no right to intervene because all juvenile case are processed in Juvenile Court.
This study tried to uate objectively whether current conditional suspension of prosecution has proper screening system and how each type of suspension of prosecution influences prevention of recidivism.

This study surveyed 582 juvenile delinquents imposed conditional suspension of prosecution. According the results of the survey, 76.8% of subjects were students of middle school and high school. 71.0% had parents, the economic level of 87.1% subjects was above normal. It means the subjects of conditional suspension of prosecution has better family backgrounds than subjects of probations or juvenile institutional disposition. Their criminal history was not much. Juveniles repeating suspension of prosecution occupied 17.8% and juveniles being between suspension of prosecution and protective disposition occupied 37.8%. Regarding more details of each programs, juveniles under suspension of prosecution with supervision of probation officer and volunteer meets them once a month for 20 minutes on average. The subjects of suspension of prosecution with education had delinquent prevention education for 3~5 days. The effects of crime prevention of the subjects under suspension of prosecution with supervision of probation officer was the highest.
According to another survey of 190 staff working for juvenile suspension of prosecution, employment history of the volunteers were longer than other staff. All the staff focused on acknowledgment, encouragement, regular life, restoration of confidence. Especially, volunteers concentrated on restoration of family relationships and financial support, probation officers focused on regular life, and staff from juvenile delinquency prevention center helped juveniles to improve their legal mind. The problems the staff point out was low awareness of the subjects, lack of specialized program for each problematic behavior, supervision difficulty resulting from insincere attitude, obscurity of the standards for each type of programs, etc. The way of improvement the staff suggested was to establish each program standards, to strengthen specialty of the volunteers, to unify the management of suspension of prosecution with education and supervision, and to build the system for information sharing related to juvenile justice.

On the survey of 10 expert’s opinion, the standards for subjects of each program are suggested. Also, they proposed parents education, restorative justice program, counselling as a condition, and combination of education and supervision as new types of suspension of prosecution to be introduced. The problem and details for improvements they suggested were similar to that of staff. They said that it is needed to strengthen the specialty of staff and the standard of subject screening, to make the best use of investigation system before final decision of prosecutor, and to support enough budget and human resources.
To improve the juvenile conditional suspension of prosecution, following is needed.
First, the screening standards of practical guidance for the subjects should be changed to fit in individual’s character and suspension of prosecution should be limited to the subjects experienced juvenile protective disposition. Second, specialty of prosecutors should be strengthened and they need to make the best use of investigation system before final decision of prosecutor. Also, management system for volunteers should be established. Third, various conditions such as parent education, therapeutic program, reconciliation program, supervision of teacher in charge should be considered as a new type of program. Fourth, duty of explanation for the juveniles and their guardian and the procedure for appeal are also needed to improve the procedure. Fifth, information sharing for the subject through unified information system and continuous monitoring after disposition are also needed not to be exposed to criminal environment.