This research is designed as the general introduction to the interdisciplinary research project, “Risk-Governing Criminal Law and Criminology in the Late-Modern Society”, which is organised by the National Research Council for Economics Humanities and Social Science, and Korean Institute of Criminology for the years of 2012 to 2013.
The second-year research is consist of “Criminological Research on the Risk Perception in Korean Society” by B. Cho & M. Hwang, “Risk-Governance Criminal Justice & Criminology in Environmental Engineering Technology” by S. Kang, J. Park & J. Lee, “Risk-Governance Criminal Justice & Criminology in Energy Technology” by Y. Kim & S. Jin, and “Problems on Risk-Govering Criminal Law and Criminology in the Contemporary Science-Technology Society” as a general report.
The tasks of criminal law and criminal justice in the contemporary high-technology society are to control criminal behaviour on the risk or fear of risk, to manage criminals as risk to social order, and to prevent crimes as risk. By introducing risk-management techniques into criminal justice system, criminal policy comes to be the integral part of social security net.
There are many perceptions on the risk-governance criminal justice policy for Korean society as risk-society :
From the positive perspective on risk management techniques, there are decease in crime victimization, reduction of crime-related social costs and application of risk management techniques for prevention of recommitment of crime. In psychology-related field and police and correction fields, ‘administrative criminology’ has been the mainstream from the positive perspective.
On the contrary, criminologists and law professionals are against the risk-based crime prevention policies. In critical criminology, in particular, there has been a criticism that the risk management perspective encourages a policy which prefers an exclusive and punitive approach to the corrective and comprehensive resocialization policy against crime because the progressive performance of modern resocialization policy can be duated, and political alliance can be formed with mass media.
The negative perspectives on risk management techniques mentioned above tend to emphasize the risk of the risk management techniques or exaggerate minor problems. In addition, they fail to suggest an alternative or improvement plan on the problems of the risk management techniques. Therefore, it is necessary to come up with integrated perspective and strategy between individual correction and social risk management. The criminal policy on the risk of a risky society should not too much focus on strengthening control or punishment. In terms of criminology, the risk management model proposes a positive direction in that it is greater than criminal justice system in which regulations are governed by a certain body, and normative obedience is ordered in terms of the latency of tolerance.
The risk management just regulates the outline for certain activities with Police Act. Within the territory, relatively open and moral flexibility exists. In a drug crime policy, in particular, the mechanism of risk management could be more effective than crime control mechanism when supply regulation, tax and hazard minimization programs are promoted along with decriminalization. Crime and risk should be managed in a political and democratic manner. The necessity of democratic control on the specialized domain of modern science technology is emphasized in the Theory of Risk Society.
In addition, citizens’ participation on risk assessment and risk control system which have been handled by experts only is the most meaningful request in terms of the democratization of risk management. In processional fields such as nuclear contamination as well, the public’s opinions as well as experts’ knowledge are required. While expertise’ knowledge is general and abstract, the locals’ opinions are specific and empirical. People from a community in which a nuclear power plant is situated have a different perspective on risk-related effects, compared to experts. Therefore, the professional knowledge of risk management should be disclosed for the criticism and correction by the general public.
In risk management and assessment, the absence of communication between experts who were isolated from other experts in a different field causes poor risk management. To prevent this kind of problem, it is necessary to democratize the risk assessment and management system, and then democratic communication among experts is guaranteed. The democratized risk management system which reflects citizens’ opinions and experts’ diverse knowledge can effectively guarantee safety.