30년간 형벌의 변화 — 형사 입법을 중심으로 —

The Criminal Law in Korea has been establishing its unique system and improving normative legitimacy for the last thirty years. Therefore, it is necessary to review changes in our penal system based on amendments to the criminal law for the current thirty years. The Criminal Law has been revised sixteen times (except for the revision of the other law), among which were seven times of revision in the penal system. Along with two amendments of removing unconstitutional elements, it would be evaluated as legitimate conducts such as setting statutory period of execution for the custody in a workhouse, lifting a regulation of concurrent offenses and enlarging a scope of a suspended sentence. On the other hand, it would be judged that the revision of the statutory punishment, the increase of the prison term of the imprisonment, the restriction of the fines upper limit of the deferment did not improve the normative power of the criminal law. By the previous cases of the amendment, criminal law in Korea has to be revised in the direction of the consistent system and fundamental practice, putting a great emphasis on the principle of equity. Most of all, it needs to examine comprehensive revision of statutory punishment, a unitary form of punishment of restricting physical freedom, introduction of measures for fines by the number of days, etc.