少年犯罪報道と専門職倫理 : 成長発達権を手がかりとして

The ideal behind the Juvenile Law is the “nurturing of sound and healthy juveniles.” Following this ideal, Article 61 of the Juvenile Law forbids the reporting of “rulings that pertain to judgments concerning juvenile offenders in family court or crimes committed when the individual prosecuted is a juvenile.” However, starting from Article 21 of the Constitution which honors freedom of expression as central, Article 61 of the Juvenile Law becomes an ethical standard. Article 21 of the Constitution starts from the idea of respecting freedom of expression, granting autonomy to the press. In this article, I draw attention this. In this article, I argue that juvenile crime reporting is not only a legal but also an ethical issue. Firstly, I provide a brief overview on a logic which approves of such reporting that the juveniles who committed a crime can be guessed. Secondly, I consider “the rights to grow and develop for the juveniles” in the light of an anonymous reporting on a juvenile crime. This idea is based on ethics of rights, which I criticize in the rest of the article. Thirdly, I explore Clifford Christians's ethics of the “common good” in order to critically to examine the rights-based rationale of juvenile crime reporting. Lastly, I examine the interrelations of juvenile crime reporting, journalists as professionals, and professional ethics.