Bits and pieces

A court has upheld Kim Su-cheol's life sentence for kidnapping an 8 year old from her school and raping her back in June. Hopefully this is an example of sentences to come.

Perhaps anklets aren't as foolproof as once thought. Technology is not always the answer, though I'm sure the manufacturers are happy people (and that goes for CCTV camera makers, as CCTV was widely called for after Kim Su-cheol's crime, despite the fact that the school did in fact have CCTV, which captured him entering the school grounds and then leaving with the girl).

The Korea Herald also reports on the increasing number of people convicted of buying sex attending "John School":

In a report from the Justice Ministry submitted to the National Assembly, a total of 99,958 were sent to the john school program as an alternative to criminal prosecution from 2005 to August last year. The figure has risen dramatically over the past five years, from 2,297 in 2005 to 11,775 in 2006, 16,379 in 2007, 19,811 in 2008 and 37,477 in 2009.

The program is a type of educational intervention aimed at helping prevent johns from repeating these offenses. By profession, office workers took up the largest portion of those who took part in the rehabilitation program.

Noteworthy is that those with high-income professions such as doctors and lawyers amounted to 13 percent of attendees in 2006. That rate later skyrocketed to 29.5 percent in 2008.

Of course, we're all well aware of this, since doctors and lawyers are routinely vilified in the media here as being sex criminals. In all seriousness though, I wonder how many of the 37,477 who were arrested in 2009 (which I imagine is not the total, as it's only the number of people who attended john school) were mentioned in media reports.