Cho. Doo. Soon.



This name has become synonymous with sex offenders targeting children.

On December 11, 2008, Cho Doo-soon raped an eight-year-old victim and inflicted permanent disability injuries, and the court sentenced him to 12 years in prison.

At the time, the court of the first trial said, "In order to protect the society by preventing the occurrence of additional crimes, and to cultivate and improve the malicious actors, it is necessary to quarantine the society for a long time."

Twelve years have passed since then, and

on December 12,

Cho Doo-soon

finishes his sentence and is released.

Upon release, an electronic anklet is attached and probation is performed for 7 years, and personal information is also disclosed for 5 years.

To the public petition to prevent Cho Doo-soon from being released, the Blue House replied, "It is impossible" and "I will surely prevent Jo Doo-soon from wandering around the victim or potential victim."



The SBS Data Journalism Team [Morning Stance] paid attention to'Cho Doo-soon' other than this Cho Doo-soon.

Sex offenders targeting children and adolescents.

We looked at how many crimes like this have occurred and have been properly punished, and whether the management is doing well after paying the penalty.

The goal of this report was to see if there are many Jo Doo-soons being missed by the symbol of Jo Doo-soon.



● 12 years after Cho Doo-soon, have we moved forward or retired?


Incident 1


In April 2019, a 47-year-old man brought a 6-year-old child to a ryokan in Chungnam.

At first, he came alone, and when he came home after going out, he brought the child. When asked who he was, the inn staff said that he was his daughter, and that he brought it because of family discord.

It was a lie.

It was a ryokan located about 300 meters away from a nearby elementary school.

The man was forced to assault a child who was playing on the street several times and attempted to rape him in his quarters.



The first trial court found it innocent, saying, "It is difficult to admit that it has been proved to the extent that there is no room for reasonable suspicion."

Nevertheless, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison, 20 years for electronic anklets, and 10 years for disclosure of personal information, saying that "severe punishment is necessary" for forced harassment, similar sexual acts, and attempted sexual assault.

It was heavier than Cho Doo-soon, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for injuries such as rape.

The second trial court dismissed both appeals and the sentence was confirmed.

The defendant was released in 2032, and after that, he was under probation while wearing an electronic anklet until 2052.



Incident 2


In April 2018, a 34-year-old man took a 10-year-old boy to his home, whom he met on a chat app.

After making him drink alcohol, he raped him.

The man, who was the head of the tutoring academy, claimed that he had sex under agreement and was unaware that he was a minor under the age of 13.

The first trial court sentenced 8 years in prison, 5 years for probation, and 5 years for disclosure of personal information, saying that the crime was bad and the victim was likely to have suffered a great deal of shock and pain. (The attachment of the electronic anklet was dismissed.) The second trial was different.



The second-trial court applied the crime of rape by minors instead of rape of minors, saying, "There is insufficient evidence to admit the accusation for committing adultery by threatening to assault the victim."

He was sentenced to three years in prison, the lowest sentence in the court (five years for probation and five years for personal information disclosure)



.

The Korean Women's Bar Association issued a statement the next day and said, "It is completely inconsistent with the sound common sense of the general public that a 10-year-old child was enticed to his home, fed two glasses of soju, and then sentenced a rape person to a 3-year sentence, which is the lowest of the legal scope. "I don't."

2 were also 240,000 people participated in the national petition asked the wavefront Sim Judge (presidential response was that "it seems to watch the by no doendamyeonseo Supreme Court also can not be involved in HR and discipline of judges.")



This all walks of life condemned Strictly dated, the Seoul High Court said that it was an unusual case to be convicted of innocence because it was not enough to prove rape with only evidence submitted by the prosecution. "According to the purpose of the criminal lawsuit, the discovery of substantial truth Ex officio, he convicted of convicting the rape of a minor.”

The Supreme Court confirmed it as the judgment of the second trial.



In Case 1, although the crime recognized by the court was weaker than Cho Doo-soon, a heavier sentence came out.

Case 2 has been criticized for narrowly applying the law to the case of a 10-year-old child, saying that sexual assault can only be established if there is violence and intimidation.

These judgments coexist.

This is the reason why it is ambiguous whether or not our court took a step further than at the time of Cho Doo-soon.



● 3,000 victims of sexual violence against children each year


The majority of sex offenders are subject to personal information registration.

Violations of the'Special Act on the Punishment of Sexual Violence Crimes, etc.' and the'Act on the Protection of Sexuality for Children and Adolescents' are almost all applicable.

Since 2014, the number of offenders who have been subject to personal information registration for sexual offenses against children and adolescents has been around 3,000 every year, and 15,898 people totaled over five years.

In 2016, it once fell below 3,000, but from 2017 it again exceeded 3,000. (2019 Child and Adolescent Sexual Crime Trends and Trends, Criminal Policy Institute) When looking at



sexual assault, similar sexual assault, and forced assault separately, every year There are around 2,500 people.

In total for five years, sexual assault accounted for 29.3%, similar sexual assault 3.6%, and forced assault 67.1%.

Compared to 2014, in 2018, sexual assault decreased slightly, and similar sexual assault and forced assault increased slightly.

Looking at this trend, the number of sexual violence crimes against children and adolescents has not increased or decreased significantly.

Why is that?



● Anger focused on'Cho Doo-soon' seen through a national petition


On August 27, a petition was posted on the Cheongwadae public petition bulletin board asking'Cho Doo-soon to stop being released from prison.'

Since the first petition in August 2017, there have been 6,805 national petitions and proposals containing the keyword'Cho Doo-soon'.

The number of petitions in which a specific person's name is mentioned is more than North Korea's Chairman Kim Jong-un (5,451), and exceeds the entire former president except for Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye. 



Of the petitions for mentioning Cho Doo-soon, five exceeded the 200,000 participation requirement.

Two of them were against the release of Cho Doo-soon (September 2017, October 2018), one abolished the reduction of mental and physical afflictions applied to Cho Doo-soon (November 2017), and the other was punished by a ridiculous cartoonist (February 2018) for victims of Cho Doo-soon. One was a petition for the dismissal of the judge for commuting the sentence of child rape. (In June 2019, it was a petition for the second sentence of the tutoring academy president mentioned above.) The



Blue House response to the two petitions asking to prevent the release of Cho Doo-soon was "retrial was punished. It is impossible under the current law to request a retrial for Cho Doo-soon to be sentenced to life because it can be claimed for the benefit of people.”

The petition for punishment of cartoonists replied, "Because it corresponds to freedom of expression, the government cannot stand," and the petition for dismissal of the judges replied, "It violates the principle of separation of powers, so the government cannot participate."

The abolition of the reduction of mental and physical weakness was answered "the law needs to be revised and that is the responsibility of the National Assembly". It became an example.



In general, the public petition does not come up with a cool answer or solution, but the public's aspiration, interest, and anger on the issue can be seen.

The fact that there were so many petitions for mentioning Cho Doo-soon would mean that we have a consensus that our society should not tolerate that much of the child sex offenders represented by him.

Was that anger properly reflected?

12 years after Cho Doo-soon, would our children become safer?

I'll point it out one by one in a follow-up article.



Coverage

: Shim Young-gu, Bae

Ji-

hoon, Ahn Hye-

min

Design

: Ahn Jun-seok

Intern

: Kim Ji-yeon, Lee Ki-eun