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This is a news blog for my Undergraduate Criminology class at Ewha University in Seoul, South Korea for Spring 2010.
Yoon Young Kang
ReplyDelete"Court Rules Death Penalty Constitutional"
The serial murders by Yoo Young Chul who killed approximately 20 people from 2003 to 2004 and Kang Ho Soon who murdered 9, including his wife and mother-in-law, from 2006 to 2009 alarmed the Korean society and raised the question about the public security and safety. These cases especially increased the fear of women because most of the victims were female. These cases were constantly reported on the media. In Yoo Young Chul’s case, the “horror stories” about him, such as the story of a girl who nearly escaped from him with the help of a man who she did not know, were circulated on the internet, thereby even further increasing the public fear. Even a movie called “The Chaser” was created and had a huge success. In case of Kang Ho Soon, his pictures and the testimonies of his acquaintances were quickly posted on the internet, thereby revealing his personal information.
These two cases also raised the question of death penalty, which was in fact “abolished” in Korea since 1997, and resulted in 64% of people’s support of the continuation of the system. It shows that people were more alert to the “life-or-death” issue than the issue of “rights and freedom” by agreeing to the system that can be misused by the government and enhance its power. This also seemed to have influenced the Constitutional Court’s decision of ruling that capital punishment was constitutional. (However, the tight majority of 5-4 shows the Court was not fully supporting the system that has not been practiced for 13 years)
Although the Ministry of Justice stated that the capital punishment was more effective and the possibility of abuse of the system was low, whether death penalty would be effective in preventing serious crimes, especially serial murders, is still questionable as the Jijon Pa (gang) case (an extreme case showing the failure of capital punishment in preventing serial killings.)
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The Constitutional Court, in a tight majority of 5-4, ruled that capital punishment is constitutional yesterday. "The basic right to life should be respected but may be restricted to a certain level by the Constitution," said the court in its ruling. "The present Constitution contextually acknowledges the death sentence system." The court thus repeated its decision of 1996, when it ruled seven to two in favor of capital punishment. However, two the judges who voted in favor of the death penalty urged the National Assembly to improve or abolish capital punishment, hinting that they would like to see the system phased out. Yesterday`s case was initiated by a petition filed by the Gwangju High Court in September 2008 upon the request of a 72-year-old fisherman under trial for murder charges. He was indicted for killing four tourists on the open sea of Boseong, South Jeolla Province. The high court claimed that the death sentence is in violation of the basic right to life and that it is an excessive punishment which may be substituted by other forms of criminal penalties. It also cited the absolute irrevocability of the sentence as a reason for abolition. The Justice Ministry, however, during the open hearing held last June, insisted that the maximum sentence be maintained. "Capital punishment has been proven to have a greater effect than a life sentence in preventing felonies," a ministry official claimed in the hearing. "There is little chance of the system being abused or misused." In a ministry-led opinion survey last year, 64 percent of respondents said they wanted the death sentence to be maintained, according to the ministry. Korea has been following the international trend of abolishing capital punishment. Death sentences have been unofficially suspended here. No cases of capital punishment have taken place since 1997 when 23 people were executed under the Kim Young-sam government. This led to Amnesty International classifying Korea as "abolitionist in practice" in December 2007. Rep. Kim Boo-kyum of the main opposition Democratic Party and Park Sun-young of the Liberty Forward Party earlier submitted separate bills to the assembly to convert death sentences to life sentences without parole. At present, 59 death row convicts, including the convicted serial killers Kang Ho-soon and Yoo Young-chul, are in jail, theoretically waiting for their execution date. Forty-six have been imprisoned for more than 10 years, according to the Justice Ministry.
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http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20100226000054
Yoon Young Kang
ReplyDelete"Number of Missing Children Skyrocketing"
This is an article related to last week's topic, but I posted it to share with the class because I found it interesting. This article shows first, how much increase there is in the number of missing children; second, how ineffective the current system of finding the missing children is; and third, how a new system will be adopted.
I think the new system would be much more helpful in terms of prevention because the current system, besides the fact that the pictures do not actually reflect the changes in children’s appearances and thus, are not very helpful in finding them, is an ex post reaction that focuses on looking for children who are already lost rather than preventing creating missing kids. The new system would be also effective in locating the runaway children who were “intentionally missed by themselves.” As the number of missing children is increasing in an alarming rate, the measure of prevention would be very important.
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The number of children going missing has soared by 230 percent from 2004-2008, according to a report published by the Korean Institute of Criminology yesterday.
The official figure of missing children, which was 4,066 back in 2004, jumped to 9,470 in 2008, showed the report, quoting the statistics from the Health Ministry and the National Police Agency.
Some 28 percent of the cases took place in Seoul, 23 percent in the surrounding Gyeonggi Province and eight percent in Busan.
From 2006-2009, the rate of male children going missing fell from 63 percent to 51 percent but that of female children rose, said the report.
More children are left neglected in homes as they live in families with working parents, said police officials.
“Parents and schools need to actively supervise the children’s perimeters,” said an NPA official.
“It is often too late for actions when the case is officially reported to the police.”
ReplyDeleteIn an attempt to prevent children from going missing, Seoul City last month decided to expand a CCTV school zone monitoring system by 2013.
Parents or guardians are to be given notice when a child strays out of the expected play area. Children may also be given portable electronic tags, which are meant to convey their locations to parents on a regular basis.
The measures followed the murder of a 13-year old girl who was found raped and murdered in Busan, after she was reported missing from her home.
Despite the soaring number of missing children, however, the system for tracking them down has not improved much over the years.
About 60 percent of the recorded cases included the photograph of the missing child but less than six percent took into account how the child is expected to have changed.
The wanted ads and leaflets, put up by the police, mostly relied on fluctuating information such as the height, weight and clothes of the child on the day he or she went missing.
Only 40 percent of the cases listed information which could last over years, such as scars or conspicuous physical peculiarities.
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http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20100504000687