형벌 중형화 경향에 관한 비판적 검토

Whenever horrific sex offences are committed against children, which attract public attention, there arises a strong public demand for an aggravated punishment of sex offenders and then, it is likely that a heavier legal punishment is imposed on sex offences and that different probation measures are taken against offenders for the same sex crime. Apart from this punishment against sex offenders, the Act on the Electronic Monitoring of Specific Criminal Offenders stipulates that the courts are vested in the authority to order sex offenders to wear an electronic monitoring anklet and to disclose personal information of sex offenders. The Act on Medication Treatment of Sexual Impulse of Sex Offenders specifies that the courts have the authority to order sex offenders to receive medical treatment. With the appearance of such new probation measures, the boundary between penal punishment and probation measures is becoming increasingly blurred. Penal punishment has a tendency to impose more aggravated punishment and a new probation measure has become rather a strong sanction means. Nevertheless, crime occurrence rate, in particular felony crime occurrence rate has been rather increasing since 2010. This study intends to review the operation of current penal system such as the status and trend of penal punishment as the results of Korea’s criminal sentencing and to describe issues by penal punishment type and disputes about the related revision. This paper also intends to make a description focused on the current shift in trends and critical review of penal punishment policy such as the policy of heavy penal punishment and the policy of strengthening and enlargement of probation measures.