This research is intended for seeking a desired criminal policy by empirically understanding a public awareness of crime and punishment. To put it more concretely, it tries to objectively get a grasp on the degree of an agreement for punishment between the public and the criminal justice agencies in today’s Korean society; through empirically analyzing how much seriousness of crime is reflected on sentencing decisions during the legislation and on sentencing itself by the courts at the stage of execution.
The public awareness is a basis for setting a direction of the criminal policy, sentencing, and the penal policy. There is a circular relationship between the awareness and the criminal policy, because only the criminal policy and the judicial system based on social consensus acquire democratic justification and those apart from it would be lacking in any justifications and result in wasting resources. Therefore, it is a very important task, from the perspective of the criminal policy, to practically reflect specific policy alternatives by calculating the public awareness through a scientific and objective way and reinterpreting meaningful results deducted from empirical studies within the normative justice system.
For these reasons, the West has early begun an investigation on the public awareness and international comparative studies for crime and sentencing by the criminal justice agencies and scholars. They have introduced and improved the judicial system, analyzing empirical studies and considering where to apply parts of them to the criminal policy. And, at the same time, they have accumulated academic discussions and operational experiences about the relations between the public awareness and the criminal justice system by reuating consequences and effects of the execution of policies. But, there is a limitation in Korean society that the research on the public awareness about crime and punishment has not been much conducted relatively. This research, therefore, does make a great contribution theoretically and practically.
The research is largely separated into two parts: the seriousness of crime and the appropriateness of sentencing. The former topic has once been investigated back in 1999, and this time the research is trying to empirically confirm a historical agreement about the seriousness of crime through longitudinal study as well as an agreement among social groups - absolute agreement and relative agreement. Moreover, it tried to empirically identify differences between a group of the public and the experts in perceiving similar types of crime by expanding the study of the seriousness to the discussion of the appropriateness of sentencing. For this purpose, I designed two individual surveys, dividing the two types of empirical studies, and collected data accordingly.

Survey Results of the Seriousness of Crime

This research has conducted a survey, using an individual interview method. It included 1,495 adults aged 20 years or older living in metropolitan cities such as Seoul, Busan, Incheon, Daegu, Gwangju, and Ulsan. In order to compare the survey results with the ones of the past surveys, mostly, if possible, similar types of crime were presented in the survey. The seriousness of crime was measured by ration scale and analytical results were interpreted through geometric mean and coefficient of variation. The results can be summarized as follows.
First, crimes classified as ‘a very minor offense’ appear to be crimes against public morals that includes relatively small-sized property crime, gambling and prostitution, and so on. Like these ones, it seems that the cost of damage plays an important role in determining the seriousness of crime, and crimes within the area of value judgment are also recognized as minor offenses. ‘A moderate offense’ includs medium-sized property crime, cyber crime such as abusive comments or hacking, bribery of civil servants, a habitual prostitution, surgical procedure of abortion, drug abuse, and sex trade. ‘A moderately serious offense’ is shown as property crime with very large damages, robbery in the form of concurrent offenses, arson on building which any person uses as a residence, getaway vehicle crimes, environmental crimes, and production and distribution of drugs. ‘A highly serious offense’ includes crimes causing the death and rape of the victim and injuring parents or parental homicide.
Second, damage amounts are shown to be proportional almost exactly to the seriousness of crime, and so was the degree of the injury to the seriousness.
Third, in the order of the seriousness, homicide(6.70) is the highest among the major offenses, and rape(5.24), robbery(2.67), injury(2.42), housebreaking burglary(2.21), fraud(1.99), theft(1.88), assault(1.42) are followed.
Fourth, results of the differences of the seriousness of crime between the groups of people show that, by gender, females have rated the seriousness on most of the crimes higher than males, whereas males more seriously regarded the crimes associated with the traditional values such as assaulting one’s own parents, causing death of one’s own parents resulting from injury, and killing ascendant. By age, people over sixties showed more sensitivity to the recognition of the seriousness of crime, and by household income, low-income households with less than monthly income of one million Won perceived most types of crime heavily. By academic achievements, people with lower academic achievements highly recognized the seriousness of minor offenses, whereas that of major offenses was rated seriously by those with higher achievements. By religion, Catholics uated most types of crime less heavily, while Christians relatively showed a tendency to perceive crimes more seriously.
Fifth, as a result of the statistical verification of the researches to find an agreement of the seriousness of crime among social groups, an existence of an absolute agreement is confirmed between different groups of gender, age, marital status, types of residence, and academic achievements. But, wide differences of opinions rather than an agreement are found between different social groups of household income and religion.
Sixth, a result of investigation, comparing the survey of the year of 1999 with that of 2014, proves that there is no such thing as a historical agreement, in terms of an absolute agreement. There is a tendency to perceive overall crimes more seriously in comparison to the 1999 study, and this trend is particularly noticeable on minor offenses that incur a small amount of damage or require a short period of medical treatment. Nonetheless, through the verification of the ranks of the survey, there exists a historical agreement in the meaning of relativity. That is to say, it can be concluded that there are no changes of the order of the seriousness in the types of crime for the past 15 years.

Survey Results of the Sentencing Criminals

The data for the appropriate sentencing was collected by surveying 600 ordinary citizens and 302 experts through internet or mail surveys. This research presented scenarios according to the major types of crime and measured the proper sentencing, the uation of the adequacy of statutory penalties, sentencing guidelines, and the possibility of probation, and main factors that have had an effect on making such judgments. The analytical results can be summarized as follows.
First, both the ordinary citizens and the experts agreed that the murder with blamable criminal intent should be sentenced to the highest punishment, whereas they decided the injury to be the lowest sentencing. This study proves that, in the aspects of the order, there is a relative consensus for major and minor crimes between the groups of the public and experts.
Second, in spite of the existence of the relative consensus between the public and the experts, differences in recognizing details of sentencing are discovered. For example, in types of crime that belong to the imprisonment period of more than six years, a statistically meaningful difference between two groups is verified in condemnation-motivated murder, rape of 13 years old or above, and sexual assault of 13 years old or above. According to the survey results, the public generally tends to desire a heavier punishment than the experts.
Third, in the uation for the adequacy of statutory penalties and sentencing standards, points of the latter uation are lower, in general, than that of the former. In comparison with the assessment of the public, the experts shown to possess more legal knowledge have rated the overall uation low, and this trend appears more striking in the sentencing standards than the statutory penalties. For the experts, the assessment of the sentencing standards for bribery, rape of 13 years old or above, aggravated intimidation, and tax evasion was so low that they seemed to be highly dissatisfied with the standards for these types of crime.
Fourth, in case of probation, both the public and the experts negatively saw the possibility of probation on rape of 13 years old or above and aggravated robbery, even if there were proper reasons to extenuate. On the other hand, both groups regarded the probation for cases of perjury, injury, and assaults, if there was a sufficient reason to be taken into consideration.
Fifth, the analysis of factors considered importantly, when judging the proper imprisonment, shows that the public takes account of all three factors identically: a motivation of crime, a degree of damage, and an effect on society.
However, the experts put a heavier emphasis on the amount of damage than the motivation. In addition, in some types of crime (bribery, interference with a public official, food / health, taxation), the effect of crime on society was an important factor for them to consider.
Sixth, there is an analysis studying whether or not there is an existence of differences between groups in perceiving three factors - motive of crime, a degree of damage, and a spillover effect on society. In case of the motive of the crime, the ordinary citizens, the public prosecutors, and law enforcement personnel relatively had a similar perception. The public and the police had a similar view in case of a degree of damage, which was different from that of the motive of the crime. In case of the spillover effect, the public, the police, and other legal public officials, when judging proper imprisonments, considered the effect at the similar level.

A Proposal of a Criminal Policy

In this study, I have presented several proposals, based on the results of these empirical studies, to apply to the criminal practices. First, it is regarded necessary to establish a cooperation between Korean Institute of Criminology (KIC) and the legislature in order to actively reflect the results of the survey on the criminal legislation and its amendments. For example, types of crimes such as bribery and embezzlement that are severe in the index of the seriousness but show very low satisfaction for statutory penalties by the public and the experts can be utilized as basic data for law amendments for aggravated punishment through an additional investigation such as expanding the scope or sample of the subjects or interviewing with related parties.
Second, there is a need to strongly apply the survey of the seriousness of crime and appropriate sentencing to the court's reform process of sentencing. The results of the survey again confirms that there exists a large discrepancy in the punitive standards between the public and the experts, in case of bribery, and even the group of the experts concern about the fact that these light punitive standards would amplify distrust between the social classes. Therefore, the judiciary branch or the third institutions should select the types of crime, that are at the center of the controversy, and present much more reasonable and proper standards by having a grasp on the unsatisfactory point where the imprisonment is recognized to be either lighter or heavier than the seriousness of crime and the nature of crime.
Third, there is room to make use of the survey results in the practice of the prosecution as well as of the National Assembly and the courts. If fully discussed and applied to the sentencing system or standards of the prosecution practically, the survey results, especially types of crime that do not show significant differences in the appropriate sentencing between the public and the experts, would minimize the instances where the public uation of the law deviates from the punishment of the prosecution. Because the amount of damage is also a very important factor in assessing the seriousness, the costs of\ damage and a degree of injury can also be taken into account more importantly, when creating decisions of imprisonment period or standards. Ultimately, these efforts, by narrowing the deviation between the decisions of the prosecutors and judges just like the developed countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany, would not only increase the public trust for the criminal justice system but also become a foundation leading to the direction of desired criminal policies.
Fourth, there should be sufficient endeavors to implement the results into a preventive activity of the police against crime and into the field of the law enforcement. The public opinion and their recognition of crime can be a meaningful resource, even to earning the trust of the police from the public, in times when the policing administration is gradually being observed not as the exercise of power by the government but as the public service to the people.This implementation will be able to increase the actual perception of the public safety as well as to make better use of insufficient manpower and budget, after concentrated preventive activities on each type of crime that has recently received the increased public attention on, based on the surveys of the seriousness of crime, compared to that of the past.
Fifth, it is necessary to induce the active social discussion through legal education. In order to improve the public awareness on criminal policies and institutions, the activation of social debate is fundamental. For, the published information and exchanged opinions generated by social debates will be the basis to establish an upright understanding of the truth of crime and punishment. In reality, policies for the participation of the personnel of the criminal justice system including the courts, the support of the government such as the Ministry of Justice, and a cooperation of the mass media should be backed up for effective social debates, rather than leaving the task only to the academy and the mass media.