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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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 Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 5:34 pm Post subject: Is Korea too soft on sex crimes? |
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On May 21, a group of Korea University medical school students went on a trip to suburban Seoul. It should have been fun and refreshing.
However, for one 24-year-old female student, it turned into a nightmare. During a party at a retreat, three male classmates induced her into drinking drugged liquor, until she became unconscious, and then gang raped her. They even took photos and filmed it.
To make matters worse for the victim, although the case has been reported and the perpetrators arrested, the university has since been hesitant in punishing them. So far there have only been meetings over the case, involving legal experts and professors, which have gone nowhere. |
http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20110708000821
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Earlier in June, a 28-year-old woman killed herself after testifying in court. She left a suicide note saying that she was mortified by the judge�s hurtful comments.
According to prosecutors and her family, the woman took her 24-year-old rapist to court. At the witness stand, she endured the hardship of confronting her rapist and testifying in his presence. However, the judge suggested she settle the case out of court instead of seeking punishment through the trial.
Furthermore, the judge repeatedly mentioned her past job as a karaoke hostess. She wrote on her suicide note: �Having worked as a hostess in the past doesn�t mean one deserves to be raped.�
Lee Eun-sang said that attitudes had to change.
�It is obviously discrimination against women to ignore hard evidence of rape and say a woman may have enticed her rapist. It�s time we set the records straight,� Lee said. |
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Friend Lee Ghost
Joined: 06 Jun 2011
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| Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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| It is usually a bad idea to change public policy based upon one or two isolated cases. It would also be a bad idea to import Western sex crime hysteria over here wholesale. It is already creeping its way here. Rather than encourage it, the dangers and injustices of overresponding ought to be pointed out. |
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Koreadays
Joined: 20 May 2008
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| Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2011 1:39 am Post subject: |
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| yeah because that judge knows all to well about room salons. |
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Louis VI
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
Location: In my Kingdom
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| Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2011 2:31 am Post subject: |
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| Women want them to be hard on sex crimes but it's a bit premature to expect it to happen anytime soon. |
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Ineverlie&I'malwaysri
Joined: 09 Aug 2011
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| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 12:20 am Post subject: |
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| No. Korea is one of the only other countries besides the US which has the poorly thought out sex offender registry. |
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NohopeSeriously
Joined: 17 Jan 2011
Location: The Christian Right-Wing Educational Republic of Korea
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| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 3:39 am Post subject: |
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| It's South Korea. South Korean citizens think differently. They think the biggest domestic threat to the public is the national police force. I can see why the cops are called jjapsae (slang for police officers in Korean; literally means cheap bast**d). |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:40 am Post subject: |
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A better question might be,
"Have Western Nations gone totally loony, bat-droppinly insane with their hysteria over potential
sex offenses?" |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 2:08 pm Post subject: |
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| some waygug-in wrote: |
A better question might be,
"Have Western Nations gone totally loony, bat-droppinly insane with their hysteria over potential
sex offenses?" |
While I agree with the overall sentiment, I don't think it's a better question in the least, considering rape essentially goes unpunished here. |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 4:11 pm Post subject: |
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You're right of course.
I just would hate to see Korea following in the West's footsteps.
or even another CPN panick where they accuse all FT of being pedophiles,
whilst turning a blind eye to their own.
I suppose this is what the OP was getting at though. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
| some waygug-in wrote: |
A better question might be,
"Have Western Nations gone totally loony, bat-droppinly insane with their hysteria over potential
sex offenses?" |
While I agree with the overall sentiment, I don't think it's a better question in the least, considering rape essentially goes unpunished here. |
It goes unpunished if blood money is accepted or if you run into some old school judge. That is why that MD student case is still in the news, she refused it. And apparently the accused have wealthy families and will probably do all they can to keep it out of court.
This blood money is part of the legal system in many parts of Asia. Getting rid of some of those old judges is also a complex matter, remember it wasn't too long ago Korea was a very very different country. You just can't go changing laws overnight, it takes years, if not decades to change laws and legal culture.
It's a good thing that Koreans are clamoring for changes to a lot of laws that were put in place a long time ago during a very different era. |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
| northway wrote: |
| some waygug-in wrote: |
A better question might be,
"Have Western Nations gone totally loony, bat-droppinly insane with their hysteria over potential
sex offenses?" |
While I agree with the overall sentiment, I don't think it's a better question in the least, considering rape essentially goes unpunished here. |
It goes unpunished if blood money is accepted or if you run into some old school judge. That is why that MD student case is still in the news, she refused it. And apparently the accused have wealthy families and will probably do all they can to keep it out of court.
This blood money is part of the legal system in many parts of Asia. Getting rid of some of those old judges is also a complex matter, remember it wasn't too long ago Korea was a very very different country. You just can't go changing laws overnight, it takes years, if not decades to change laws and legal culture.
It's a good thing that Koreans are clamoring for changes to a lot of laws that were put in place a long time ago during a very different era. |
Yet by all accounts there's immense pressure for women to accept blood money rather than push for prosecution, and when people are prosecuted for sex crimes the punishment is often extremely lenient.
Remember this one:
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The rape case of an 8-year-old girl is rattling the nation.
Following the attack by a 57-year-old man, the victim lost 80 percent of her colon and genital organs. The rapist is now in prison, serving a 12-year sentence recently confirmed by the Supreme Court.
When this fact recently came to light, some 400,000 citizens filed a petition asking that the man serve a maximum penalty and financially compensate the damage caused. Even President Lee Myung-bak has entered the fray. The nationwide outrage erupted after a Tuesday current affairs show on KBS-TV featured the girl�s case while dealing with sexual assaults on children.
Shocked by the savagery of a crime that had not been disclosed before, citizens posted details of the assault across cyberspace. They even posted the offender�s name, photos and address, though those have yet to be verified. In a single day, more than 200,000 signed the petition on the portal Daum seeking harsher punishment against the offender. |
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2910833
I'm not going on a tangent about the horrors of the Korean justice system here, as I understand the challenges transitional democracies face, but that doesn't change the fact that it has some serious problems. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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| According to the police, Cho served three years in jail under charge of injury resulting from rape in 1983 and has committed 14 other offenses, which have landed him in jail for another seven years and four months. |
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| The court said it took into consideration that Cho was drunk, and thus was �weaker mentally and physically.� Under the Korean law, when an intoxicated person commits a crime, the court can reduce a sentence. |
This is what I can't comprehend. Why do people who commit crimes while drunk (including sex crimes) get a lower sentence?
Alcohol does so much damage to Korean society, which is why I don't understand the general attitudes towards it.
Marijuana is strictly illegal in Korea, but heavy drinking is tolerated and even encouraged. Which of the two has been shown to increase the incidence of violent behavior, and which has not? Do you know the answer?
Cullen Thomas got three and a half years in jail for bringing marijuana into the country (what he did hurt no one) and the rapist got three years in jail. Who should have gotten a longer sentence?
Look at this recent survey from the United States:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/general_lifestyle/august_2009/51_rate_alcohol_more_dangerous_than_marijuana
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| Fifty-one percent (51%) of American adults say alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 19% disagree and say pot is worse. |
Developing Brains: Alcohol Worse than Marijuana
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It appears that when it comes to teen brain development, parents should be more worried about alcohol abuse than marijuana abuse. Two recent studies have been published showing that alcohol -- a legal substance (though not legal for teens in the U.S.) -- is considered more dangerous than marijuana, which is illegal in many countries.
One study has been published in the U.S., in the journal Clinical EEG and neuroscience: official journal of the EEG and Clinical Neuroscience Society (ENCS), and shows that alcohol has a stronger effect on teen brain development than marijuana. The other is a study published in the Lancet, offering the results of substance classification by a number of U.K. professionals, purporting that alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana to individuals and to society. |
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| Findings from the U.S. study, showing that alcohol use in teens causes more irregular brain function than marijuana, would seem to square with efforts in the U.K. to encourage new drug classification. In the Lancet, David Nutt at Bristol University, along with his colleagues, asked psychologists and scientifically or medically trained police to rank different substances according to how harmful they are. The study purports that experts rank alcohol (and tobacco) as more harmful than marijuana. In a list of 20 substances, alcohol came in at number five, tobacco came in at number nine, and marijuana/cannabis came in at number eleven. |
Where do these pro-alcohol/anti-marijuana sentiments in Korea come from? Could somebody please explain? |
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weso1
Joined: 26 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:59 pm Post subject: |
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All rape reports should be taken seriously and investigated. However, if we start punishing every male accused of it, it will soon be like the situation in the States.
At home, a woman can accuse any man of rape and the police have to automatically arrest that man and hold him for questioning. That simple arrest can cause someone to lose their job, security clearance, and affect their credit and standing in a community. If she lied, she is almost never punished severely enough to prevent her from doing it again and more innocent lives get ruined.
The same is true for Japan. False accusations over train gropes have gotten so out of control that, not only do women have "women only" cars, but now men want "men only" cars on subways to avoid the chance of being falsely accused.
We need to punish sex criminals to the fullest extent of the law. We also need to throw the book at those women that would abuse the system to get what they want. Whatever punishment a man would get for raping a woman, a woman should get for falsely accusing a man of rape. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2011 6:46 pm Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
[q
Yet by all accounts there's immense pressure for women to accept blood money rather than push for prosecution.... |
That's one I've never heard.
Care to list a few of these "accounts"? |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2011 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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| World Traveler wrote: |
| Where do these pro-alcohol/anti-marijuana sentiments in Korea come from? Could somebody please explain? |
http://www.froginawell.net/korea/2006/05/marijuana-crisis/
Gives a brief introduction. Also, US pressure on many countries to make marijuana illegal.
One of my friend's father was with the ROK army in Vietnam and said that he tried all kinds of drugs because US soldiers had them all and senior officers didn't really care. He said LSD and marijuana were the most common though. |
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