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The government will introduce a special law to crack down on child sex offenders in the wake of a series of assaults, kidnapping and murders of young girls. The new law will make sex offenders who murder children under 13 after assaulting them face the death penalty or life imprisonment. The government will name the law after Lee Hye-jin and Woo Ye-seul, who were found killed last month in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province after they were kidnapped in December last year.
The Cabinet was briefed on Tuesday by the Ministry of Justice on measures aimed at cracking down on child sex offenders. The bill will be submitted to the National Assembly during a regular house session in September. The government will also mete out harsher punishments to sex criminals who assault children under 13; they will no longer be eligible for probation or parole.
In the latest case that caused an uproar, a man last week attempted to kidnap a schoolgirl in an apartment building in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province, just two years after he served a 10-year prison term for habitual child molestation. His victims were aged between five and nine. He committed his crimes in elevators or on stairways in buildings. Statistical data suggest that child molesters are highly likely to repeat their crime.
According to the Korean Institute of Criminology, the recidivism rate of child molesters is in the 50-percent range, more than 10 points higher than that of ordinary criminals. One in two convicted child sex offenders tend to look for other children as their next targets. Several foreign countries have introduced various measures to prevent the repeat of sex crimes against children. Many force child sex criminals to wear electronic bracelets to monitor them around the clock. Here, the National Assembly in 2007 passed a law on electronic tagging of habitual sex offenders, which will go into force later this year.
Most child sex offenders are likely to have psychological problems. Some countries attempt to detain pedophiles they judge in danger of re-offending in rehabilitation centers even after they serve prison terms. The Justice Ministry is considering introducing this kind of rehabilitation system here too.
But there is opposition from human rights groups. The National Human Rights Commission maintains that the introduction of electronic monitoring bracelets and compulsory rehabilitation programs violates the ban on double jeopardy in the Constitution. It says it would be double punishment of offenders who have already served their prison terms if they are forced to wear electronic bracelets or are quarantined for rehabilitation, no matter how heinous their crimes.
The option of installing more CCTV cameras, which were decisive in solving the latest attempted abduction, will be difficult. There are many complicating factors in the law on CCTVs in public places, including the need to obtain consent from local residents.
Some argue that lenient sentences have also worked against deterring child sex offenders. According to the Justice Ministry, the frequency of sex crimes against children under 13 increased annually in Korea between 2003 and 2007, but the number of those who serve prison terms for this crime has been falling every year.
Meanwhile, a spate of recent sex crimes against children has sparked public debate on whether to abolish the death penalty. Korea is labeled an ˇ°abolitionist in practiceˇ± by Amnesty International, given that the country has not carried out executions for more than 10 years. But in an interview with the Chosun Ilbo on Monday, Justice Minister Kim Kyung-han said, "At this stage, we have no intention to abolish the death penalty."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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