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| The Supreme Court's sentencing commission said it will recommend new sentencing guidelines for digital sex crimes in response to rising public calls for the harsh punishment of the "Nth Room" sexual abuse suspects./ Korea Times file |
By Kim Se-jeong
The Supreme Court's sentencing commission plans to make sentencing guidelines tougher for digital sex crimes in response to the rising public outcry over the Telegram sexual abuse case, it said Tuesday.
Currently, no sentencing guidelines exist for digital sex crimes, and the closest thing to guidelines that do exist are the minimum five years in prison for producing child pornography and a maximum 10 years for distributing child pornography for profit.
The guidelines assist judges in deciding on appropriate sentences. They're not mandatory but an important reference point for judges. The independent commission can revise the guidelines when it deems it necessary to do so.
The 13-member commission met on Monday and agreed there was a need to create harsher sentencing guidelines. The chief commissioner Kim Young-ran said the members will meet again in May to draft a proposal which will be made public in June after it is reviewed by citizens and lawmakers.
The "Nth Room" case has prompted the public to call for new sentencing guidelines for sex offenses. Two lawyers recently requested for the Supreme Court to make sentencing guidelines for digital sex offenses, with their suggestions for guidelines attached. They collected more than 20,000 citizen endorsements for their proposal, which they also submitted to the court.
Earlier this month, two men were indicted for blackmailing women and young girls, forcing them to make sexually exploitative videos and sharing them in chat rooms on the Telegram messenger service. One of the suspects, Cho Ju-bin, allegedly created one of the most notorious of the chat rooms and sold access to the rooms. Kang Hun allegedly acted as Cho's conspirator, collecting fees from clients and transferring the money to Cho.
The chat room had more than 1,000 paid members who paid the entrance fee in cryptocurrency.
The prosecution said recently the operation was run like a criminal gang and that it is pursuing to add an additional charge against the suspects. Cho is already facing 14 charges.
The case has outraged many in Korea, who called on the police to make Cho and Kang's identities public when they were transferred from the police to the prosecution office.
The Korean legal system is relatively lenient when it comes to sex crimes which has led to public outcries over a number of lax punishments handed down in recent years.
One prime example is Son Jong-woo who was sentenced to just 18 months in prison for circulating 220,000 child sexual abuse videos on what was the world's biggest child pornography site on the dark web.
In comparison, a court in the U.S. handed down a five year prison sentence to one of Son's clients for downloading and watching child pornography.
Son is also in trouble with the law enforcement of the United States which indicted him for promoting and circulating child pornography in 2018. On Monday, the Korean government decided to begin the process to extradite him.
Son had 3,344 paid members on his website from around the world, which kicked off an international investigation. Among the 3,344 members, law enforcement bodies identified 310, among whom more than 200 were Koreans.
