By Yi Whan-woo
The government has come under criticism for poorly managing a sex offender registry following the murder of a 10-year-old girl by a repeat sex criminal who turned out to be her neighbor in Tongyeong, South Gyeonsang Province.
The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family runs a separate registry system. They have different rules on the disclosure of the list of sex offenders.
The case proved that the disclosure system of the two ministries has not worked in preventing crimes.
The suspect, surnamed Kim, was not on either of the lists although he was convicted of raping a woman in her 60s in 2005.
“A repeat sex criminal can target children and women regardless of their age,” a Constitutional Court official said. “And the government should change its policies on the disclosure of information on those sex offenders.”
Kim, 45, kidnapped and killed the girl who asked him for a ride to her elementary school on July 16 in Tongyeong. None of his neighbors, including the victim’s father, knew that Kim had served a jail term for raping a 62-year-old woman.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens across the country have visited online sex offender registries operated by the two ministries since Kim was arrested on Sunday. They show personal information on sex criminals including photos, ages, and addresses.
People who tried to find to sex offenders in their neighborhoods, however, face a similar problem as Kim’s neighbors, because a number of criminals are excluded from the websites.
The justice ministry discloses information on those offenders convicted for sex crime against adults since April 2011.
The gender equality ministry, on the other hand, only shows records on child molesters whose crimes occurred since January 2010.
“We’re fully aware that our current sex offender registry has a number of problems in terms of efficiency,” said a gender equality ministry official.
A justice ministry official echoed this view, saying consistent criteria should be adopted. “The dual system is definitely problematic and we’re considering setting a unified registry and disclosure system as quickly as possible.”
Experts criticized the government and called for immediate action for improvement.
“No other countries have such complicated criteria in running the sex offender registry,” said Kim Ji-sun, a research at the Korean Institute of Criminology.
She also suggested possible measures for improvement.
“I think it would be more efficient if the Ministry of Justice runs the registry and sets other related policies to protect women and children,” she said. "Meanwhile, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family can support the latter with the introduction of therapy for the victims and their families.”
