In 2020, Korea is in unprecedented darkness. The worldwide Covid-19 pandemic causes stagnation in the nation's economy, jurisdiction, politics, and public welfare. Intercontinental exchanges by ships and airplanes are also frozen. People who lost their friends and normal lives are suffering a gloomy reality. A glimmer of hope for the end of the pandemic is losing light for the human race. However, the greatest darkness threatening humans is growing in human form, not in the rapidly spreading epidemic or the collapsing economy. Under the evil-minded sexual exploitation crimes, humans were leading themselves into tragedy.
The digital sexual exploitation crime inflicted an incredible wound to lots of girls in the space called 'Nth Room,' which became widely known through the blue-house national petition in January. However, the first time when a digital sexual exploitation crime dug into society is June 2015, when Son Jeong-woo ran the dark web child porn site. He opened 'Welcome to video,' which shares child sexual exploitation videos in full English. In the Korean court, he was sentenced to one and a half years in prison in May last year for
violating the Sexual Protection Act on Children and Adolescents, after being found guilty of producing and distributing obscene materials. In addition, he is also being judged on charges of international money laundering as he has been recognized for his illegal foreign earnings, so the U.S. court requested his extradition.
Amid national attention, the principal suspects' personal information was unusually disclosed. The Korean prosecution service said they will also ask additional charges as the investigation continues on those already on trial. The punishment of digital sexual criminals is expected to be very important because they have systematic and similar modus operandi. Yet, we need additional investigations into the 260,000 people who are assumed to pay money gaining access to the illegal online chat rooms. If found guilty, they also need to be appropriately punished. In April, the Korean government announced a joint task force of related ministries for digital sexual crime eradication measures rooted in zero-tolerance principles for sexual crimes. They also signaled the progress of a major investigation.
However, as the investigation progresses, and the suspects are arrested, national attention is moved to those criminals' penalty level. Son Jung-woo, who ran a large-scale dark web site and created numerous victims, was sentenced to one and a half years in prison, and 'Kelly' who took 'Nth Room' over from 'watchman' was sentenced to one year in prison. And the 'watchman,' who connected digital sexual criminals to each other, has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison by the prosecution. People complain that sexual criminals and others are punished relatively lightly compared to other countries. The most often mentioned country is the U.S. because we can easily find some news about U.S. courts punishment. But the Korean court and American court are starkly different.
There is a multitude of differences between the Korean and American courts, but the most significant difference is the legal system. The legal system of the world can be divided mainly into the European Continental Law centered on Germany and France and the Anglo-American Law system centered on Britain and the United States. The Continental Law is characterized by the law system in the form of the written law and the punishment of the weighted principle, in which the upper limit of the law aimed at the edification of criminals exists, and the penalty of the criminal. The Anglo-American law, on the other hand, has a high sentence without an upper limit on the separation of the legal system and society of case law, and a pathological principle that punishes all crimes of revenge.
The Korean court has a legal system based on continental law affected by the Japanese colonial era. And America naturally has a legal system based on the Anglo-American Law system. The most significant drawbacks of those two legal systems, respectively, are the
possibility of promoting serious crimes due to the low sentence of continental law, and the ambiguity of the seriousness of crimes due to the morbidity of Anglo-American law. This is the reason why we can find serious criminals in Korea and over hundred-year punishments in America.
The legal system of a nation is the basis of a country's social order and is aimed at ensuring human rights and seeking stability. The judiciary of the Republic of Korea adopted a continental legal system aimed at enlightening criminals to return them to society in
consideration of their human rights. The reason for preserving this legal system is for national sentiment and national stability. Therefore, it is impossible to rule against the legal system on the grounds of a lesser sentence than in other countries. In principle, a maximum of 30 years is limited for a single crime and 50 years for aggravated punishment under the Criminal Law of the Republic of Korea.
All rulings are based on sentencing standards based on the legal system of the Korean judiciary. In addition to that, it is a self-evident fact that the dark web site operators and paid users who make numerous victims should be punished in due form. Therefore, within the scope of not going against the legal system, we need to shape up the sentencing standards, and all participants should be punished by the government's zero-tolerance principle. It is time for the systematic punishment of crime to establish correct gender awareness and the realization of a just society to be more important than anything else.
