The law against forgery is designed to protect society from the deceitful creation or alteration of writings on whose authenticity people depend in their important affairs. This paper intended to perform an empirical study on forgery in Korea. In Korea, there has been rare empirical research study on forgery. It is no exaggeration to say that most of advanced study on forgery in Korea have focused on legal interpretation.
The contents of this paper are described below.
First, chapter 2 established the basic range of this study by explaining legal meaning and topology of forgery. The classification of forgery mainly focused on four types of Korean criminal law, that is, counterfeiting of currency, forgery of valuable securities, forgery of s(including the fabrication of the official s and the forgery of a private ) and forgery of a seal or stamp(actually including the forgery of a signature). The empirical study was conducted on the basis of such four types of forgery. In chapter 3, through official crime statistics we inquired into many characteristics of four types of forgery by comparing one another within four types of forgery and comparing them with some other types of crime such as theft, robbery or rape and so on. In chapter 4, we approached forgery matter in more detail by analyzing 174 cases obtained from 38 prosecution which were occurred in 2010. By doing so we tried to subdivide the types of forgery more specifically. In other words, we observed specific cases' distribution and what kind of specific cases are standing out in four basic types of Korean criminal law. Finally, in chapter 5, on the basis of this study's observation we suggested some preparations which social institutions including the machinery of law are able to take.