ed No quick fix

Time to segregate child sex offenders for long

Another heinous sex crime was carried out on a 7-year-old girl in Naju, South Jeolla Province, last week.

The latest kidnap and rape case is all the more shocking as the girl was abducted from her home while sleeping. She was brutally raped and abandoned on a roadside along the Yeongsan River.

It’s deplorable that our public security has been loosened to the point where parents should worry about the safety of their children while they sleep.

Like many previous child sex offenders, the 23-year-old suspect, surnamed Koh, was a neighbor of the victim and an acquaintance of the child’s mother. All this explains why parents and families should always keep a watchful eye, even on people in their neighborhood. It has been found that nearly half of those who commit sexual assaults are acquaintances of the victims.

Koh, who has no previous convictions for sex offenses, appears to be a loner who likes to watch child pornography.

The incident is the latest in a spate of appalling sexual assaults on women and children that have prompted calls for tougher punishment for offenders. The heinous nature of this attack is reminiscent of the brutal rape of an 8-year-old girl in December 2008, when Cho Doo-soon was caught for brutally beating and raping the girl, known only as Na-young, after kidnapping her on her way to school in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province.

A day after the rape in Naju, President Lee Myung-bak apologized and promised to come up with fundamental measures to ensure public safety. The National Police Agency said Sunday that it will revive random checks on the streets as part of efforts to prevent violent crimes, including child sex offenses.

The government has promised sweeping measures whenever high-profile crimes, especially targeting children, have occurred but little progress has been made. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix for sex crimes. In this respect, there should be steady and consistent efforts undertaken by the nation as a whole.

Light penalties may be behind the string of random attacks and sex crimes recently. With regard to the sexual assaulters, there are voices calling for mercy on the grounds that their crimes are related in large part to socioeconomic factors. But what if your children fall victim to such brutal crimes?

In 2009, Cho Doo-soon was given a 12-year jail term ― a light punishment given the horrific nature of his crime ― and the statutory punishment for rapists victimizing children under 13 was strengthened to imprisonment for life or more than 10 years in jail in 2011. But the minimum punishment for rapists of adults remained at only three years. Actual sentences were an average of three years and two months for offenses against adults and five years and two months for crimes against minors.

In contrast, penalties against sex crimes are harsher abroad. Take the United States. Actual sentences for rapists in the U.S. were an average of 10 years and five months, three times heavier than those here. If the nature of the crime is heinous, the attacker could receive a life sentence even if a first-time offender.

Needless to say, utmost attention should be paid to the treatment and education of convicted sexual assaulters to prevent their crimes but now it might be time to consider segregating them from society for long periods through heavier penalties.