Supreme law increases incentives for ‘voluntary confession and whistle-blowing’ for digital sex crimes

Jo Joo-bin was sent to the prosecution office at the Jongno Police Station in March. Jo Ju-bin was sentenced to 40 years in prison at the first trial. [연합뉴스]

On the 7th, the Supreme Court sentencing committee confirmed a draft sentencing standard for digital sex crimes. If the sexual exploitation of children and young people occurred more than once, the court could go to prison until March 29.

Children and adolescents who buy pornography and film illegal videos can be punished with up to six years in September and up to four years and June in prison even for possessing illegal videos. After the n-bang incident, court criticism of the cotton bat punishment increased and sentencing standards for digital sex crimes have risen significantly.

Another feature of today’s sentencing committee decision is that it proposed eight special weighting factors and five special reduction factors in digital sex crime cases. The sentencing commission presented a total of 13 factors, eliminated the clause that forced victims to be ‘victims’ and reflected the characteristics of digital sexual crimes, which once disseminated are difficult to recover.

Kim Young-ran, chairman of the Suspension Committee, was locked up in the national Supreme Court audit last October. [연합뉴스]

The doctor that victims of children and adolescents “do not want punishment” went from being a special mitigating factor for sexual offenders to a general mitigating factor. Among the motives of “causing serious harm to the victim”, which was a factor in the aggravated sentence of the accused, it was also decided to subtract the “suicides and suicide attempts” of the victim. This is because these provisions oblige the victim to be a “victim.”

As a special mitigating factor for digital sex crime defendants, Yang Hyeong-com added practical measures to prevent the spread of harm to illegal filming. If the defendant deletes or discards the sexually exploitative material before it is disseminated, a special mitigating factor may be applied when the person deletes illegal footage distributed on the Internet at considerable expense.

For example, in the case of an illegal film production, the basic sentence is 5 to 7 years. If a special weighting factor is added to this, the sentence is greatly increased from June 19 to March 29 in the case of a habitual offender, but if a special reduction of the basic sentence is applied, the sentence will be reduced from 2 to 6 years. In the case of a first offense, the difference in penalty between the special aggravating factor and the mitigating factor reaches a maximum of 17 years.

Ahead of Jo Joo-bin’s election last month, ‘eNd’ members in front of the Seoul Central District Law (protest to urge violent punishment for n-bang’s sexual exploitation) are calling for severe punishment against Jo Ju-bin and others. [뉴스1]

Considering the characteristics of digital sex crimes that are difficult to trace, as revealed in the Room n case, Yang Hyung-wi suggested “the case where the defendant reveals the full picture of the crime through the delivery full voluntary and whistle-blowing “as a special awareness raising factor. Although not a voluntary confession, general mitigating factors were applied in contributing to the punishment of accomplices and subsequent crimes.

This seems to take into account the fact that the confession and cooperation of Jo Joo-bin’s accomplices in the investigation played a significant role in uncovering the entire crime. The case of the court’s cash deposit, one of the reasons for the defendant’s current reduction, was also excluded from the reduction factor because it was a sentencing factor that was not related to the will of the victim. In the case of illegal filming offenses, the Yang Hyungwon included cases where the majority shared roles and cases of filming by high spread as special weights.

Attorney Kim Young-mi (Soongin law firm), who delivered 15,000 public opinions on digital sex crimes to the Commission, said of the resolution that day: “People are not only confessing or reflecting on digital sex crimes, but how much effort the perpetrators made to recover the victims. He said: “It seems that people’s opinions are reflected to some extent.”

Reporter Park Tae-in [email protected]