By The absurdly light penalties for raping someone in Korea continues:
A 26-year-old man surnamed Kim was sentenced last Friday to a suspended sentence of three years for breaking into a house and raping the occupant.
So far, seven such rulings have been made in courts nationwide and among them, four in Seoul courts, according to court officials.
The set of sentencing guidelines for eight major crimes came into effect on July 1 amid the judiciary’s efforts to secure the equity of trials and the rule of law. The crimes are bribery, embezzlement, breach of trust, murder, rape, robbery, perjury and false accusation. [Korea Herald via Brian in Jeollanam-do]
The government is trying to create more set sentencing guidelines for major crimes. It appears for rape and sexual assault the sentences are going to remain light with few sexual predators going to jail and even giving the victims of sexual assault back to the perpetrators.
Some how I think this goes against the city’s attempt to create a “Women Friendly Seoul“.
6:53 am on August 17th, 2009 1
And items like this, at this day and age, helps us understand in part how Pres. Park thought to continue with his speech…
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11:38 am on August 17th, 2009 2
“The government is trying to create more set sentencing guidelines for major crimes. It appears for rape and sexual assault the sentences are going to remain light with few sexual predators going to jail and even giving the victims of sexual assault back to the perpetrators.
Some how I think this goes against the city’s attempt to create a “Women Friendly Seoul“.”
The US with it’s much harsher sentencing, some of which borders on draconian, has what to show for it? Major cities that are on orders of magnitude more dangerous for women than Seoul. Perhaps this is just a small price to pay for the feeling of self righteousness that you apparently enjoy.
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August 17th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
You know — when you see things like a girl raped in her family for years by multiple members of it – and they get suspended sentences – and the girls is handed back to them —- yeah —- it’s pretty bleeping easy to feel self-righteous.
Magnitudes more dangers for women than Seoul? I guess when the courts won’t even slap rapists on the list, and cat burglars sometimes rape the wife and/or daughter so the family won’t report any of the crimes, and adult students tell me from time to time that some hard up boyfriends would rape a woman in order to force her to marry him — I guess I can see why it would go under reported so you can make your dubious claim.
What does the US get for its draconian treatment of poor, pitiable rapists?
It gets rapist off the streets for a number of years so they can’t do it again…
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August 17th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
And what evidence do you have that Seoul is orders of magnitude safer from being raped than US cities? Especially when many rapes go unreported in Korea due to fear of being shamed? And where does not punishing rapists lead to less rapes?
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2:43 pm on August 17th, 2009 3
This attitude could explain also the high rate of trafficking of women in Korea on both sides of the DMZ.
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5:20 pm on August 17th, 2009 4
The frequency in which you get to see rape cases result in no jail time or very little jail time is a very strong deterrent to reporting the crime. Why would a woman want to put herself through the ordeal of a trial if the guy was going to walk away even when found guilty?
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7:17 pm on August 17th, 2009 5
Dave does have a point that the US and its sentences oughtn’t be used as a model for anyone considering the crime infecting it, though as GI Korea points out, suspended sentences for breaking, entering, and raping, and suspended sentences for a family who raped a disabled girl for seven years are ridiculously light and need to be pointed out.
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August 18th, 2009 at 1:22 am
I respectfully disagree. The idea here is that the US justice system is a poor model because the way it handles crime has failed to deter it. That the fact the US has a lot of crime proves its penal institutions and court system are a failure.
If someone can show me a tier 1 developed nation that has significantly deterred crime through a different system, I’d like to see it.
I said a tier one developed nation, because one working hypothesis I have is that — many other nations have deflated crime figures because the state simply does not enforce its laws – whether it is due to lack of funds, rampant corruption, or whatever.
My guess is that what separates the wealthy industrialized democracies from most other nations in terms of crime rate is under reporting rather than higher frequency…
The idea of pointing to the number of rape victims in the US as a means to discredit its handling of convicted rapists is even weaker when you consider the common motivation behind rape. Rapists don’t sit around calculating a cost-to-benefit ratio before they make a decision to do the deed or not. Giving them a high prison sentence isn’t aimed for deterrence. It is aimed at keeping them off the street.
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7:13 am on August 18th, 2009 6
They say that South Korea is a safe country but I will tell you there is no way in hell I am going to go out in the evening by myself and it’s because of their nonchalant attitude about rape. As a woman I do not feel safe here at all. No way. I think it’s funny that they are trying to make it woman friendly. It’s going to take convictions, not parking spaces, to make me feel safer.
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4:22 pm on October 6th, 2009 7
[...] As you can see how light of a sentence he got for the bruttal rape of an 8 year old. http://rokdrop.com/2009/08/17/light-penalt…tinue-in-korea/ Now are Korean police incompetent or lazy [...]