The Korea Local Administration Review

The purpose of this study is to comprehensively analyze the issues, decision-making processes, and other aspects by which the child abuse prevention and protection policy change flows through Kingdon's policy flow model and to derive meaningful implications from such analysis. In line with this, the scope of the study was set to begin from 2014 to the latest when the Act on Special Cases for Including Child Abuse Crimes was enacted. Data from pertinent government reports, policy papers and indicators, statistical results, newspaper articles, bills of law were analyzed.
As a result of the analysis, the flow of problems related to child abuse, the flow of politics, and the flow of policy were not completely combined for a long time. However, the so-called Jung In-i incident in October 2020 led to the formation of public opinion and the window of policy was opened. In this process, the child abuse reporter was a key policy leader. On the other hand, the interest and participation of public officials, who are policy leaders in the public domain, were insufficient and remained in a passive role to prevent incidents.
To secure the effectiveness of child abuse prevention and protection policies, this study proposes a multifaceted cooperation system that includes the central government, local governments, education offices, police offices, the Ministry of Justice, and specialized child protection organizations, which will thereby transform the policy into an organic combination system. This study stresses the need to resolve the problem.