Chapter 1. Significance of Research

Background of research

- The mental damage suffered by crime victims, namely post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and it’s sequelae, is accompanied by very serious symptoms, which are beyond the pain of one individual.
- However, there are difficulties in diagnosing PTSD itself, limitations of stringency, etc., and difficulties at the time of diagnosis.

Purpose of research

- Therefore, it is necessary to consider the psychological damages caused by crime, including PTSD, from various angles and to demonstrate the symptoms through clinical methods.
- Refer to laws and practices of other countries to explore the possibility of concretely and practically supporting and rescuing the victims with mental damages.

Method of study

- Analyze the concept and the supporting method of mental damage caused by crime in our legislation and practice [Law and literature analysis]
- A survey on victims' heights by conducting structured clinical interviews and filling out self-report questionnaires of the survey subjects [clinical analysis]
- A Review on the Current Status of Protection and Support System for Crime Victims in Mental Damage [Comparative Law Approach]

Chapter 2. Legal Analysis of the Crime Victims Trauma

The gap between trauma's legal internal and external concept

- Under the current law, mental illness is “an important constraint on living independently in daily life due to delusions, hallucinations, thinking or mood disorders” (“Act on the Promotion of Mental Health and Welfare Services for Mental Illness”, in Article 3 Subparagraph 1). The regulation defines mental disorders regardless of the cause of mental illness, and this concept can be applied to mental disorders caused by crime.
- Although laws that clearly identify mental damage as an element of crime in current laws are hard to find, there is a statement in the Enforcement Decree of the Criminal Victim Protection Act that states “mental disorder.”
However, this is only a requirement for the payment of rescue funds.
- The provisions defining mental damages as crimes include Article 2 of the [Special Act on the Punishment of Domestic Violence Crimes], Article 8 of the Act on the [Punishment of Crimes Under the Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court], and the [Act on the Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection], etc. Article 44-7 Paragraph 1 Subparagraph 3, Article 9 Subparagraph 3 of the [Law on the Fair Collection of Claims], Article 3 Paragraph 1 Subparagraph 19 of the [Minor Offenses Penalty Act], Indirectly prescribed.
- However, according to the non-legal notion of trauma, past experiences come to life vividly and fall into fear and sorrow that prevents us from living a normal life. It makes you continue to use energy to influence the fundamental parts of how you react to the world, stress control, It causes significant pain or damage in socially and occupationally critical function area of accompanied by increased stress, depression, panic disorder, and suicidal thoughts.
- These non-legal concepts are obviously the concept of human symptoms and disabilities, and they limit the daily lives of humans as well as physical harm, so they can punish criminals and rescue victims for the trauma they suffer. Obviously a criminal policy approach is needed.

Why it is hard to recognize mental injury as a crime

- On the other hand, if mental damage is defined as a crime, the personal injury of the victim affects the mental damage, so the same act may be punished differently, which may violate the principle of the criminal law.
- In addition, the recognition of mental injuries by policy may result in an infinite expansion of the scope of punishment along with the ascending scope.

Efforts to resolve situations where the law does not include mental injuries as crimes (a temporary remedy)

- Sentencing
* Because of these problems, that is, the court plays a role in criminal judgment for criminally filling the legal internal and external gaps of the trauma concept in the establishment of crime.
* The court decides to impose a severe sentence on the basis of sentencing standards and precedents in case of mental damage, but judging the trauma only by the effect of the damage on the sentence, not the establishment of the crime, is not a fundamental solution.
* Apart from establishing a criminal offense for mental harm, it may be necessary to specifically establish the detainee as a law or as a guideline, which is worth seeing in the UK's Criminal Justice Act 2003 and the United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual 2018.
- Psychological Support System
* In addition, our law recognizes that psychological damages are caused by crimes, so states the defendant’s resignation, the witness’s newspaper by the relay and the shielding facility, the accompany system with the person in trust, the statement support system, and the witness supporter system. We provide a system for crime victim support centers, smile centers, victim supporters, and personal safety measures, and provide rescue funds for mental injuries.
* These are considered efforts to bridge the gap between trauma as the establishment of crime and trauma as a non-legal concept.
- Recognition of mental injury through precedent
* We can find grounds for admitting mental injuries in our law, and the court said that 'the impairment of physiological or living functions caused by crime includes not only physical function but also mental function impairment.' and admitted damage. Furthermore, there are no cases of physical injury that can be diagnosed, but there are cases where only mental injury is recognized as injury.

Chapter 3. Investigation of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Crime Victims

Problem of PTSD investigation due to crime

- Experience of traumatic or stressful events can lead to various mental pains such as depression and anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder is known as a typical trauma and stress related disorder.
- Recently, the types of trauma events have been more detailed and researched, and Interest in the types of trauma events is increasing, such as understanding the psychological impact of each type of trauma event, but there are few studies on post-traumatic stress disorder among crime victims in Korea.
- To better understand the symptoms and severity level of post-traumatic stress disorder in crime victims, it is necessary to examine the impact on crime victims by subdividing by crime damage.

Content of PTSD investigation due to crime

- About 65.5% of all subjects were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Immediately after the incident, about 90% of post-traumatic stress disorder was diagnosed.
- The severity of post-traumatic stress disorder is in the order of rape, forced assault, domestic violence, (social) community violence, and indirect damage.
After a while, a large number of victims also reported post-traumatic stress disorder.
- Also, indirect victims who do not directly suffer crimes have a high rate of diagnosis and severity of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sexual violence

- About 60% of those who suffered rape were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder at the time of investigation.
- Symptom severity was highest after 3 months of crime.
- About 85.7% of victims of rape attempts or forced rape were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Domestic violence

- 67.9% (36people) of the victims of domestic violence were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder at the time of the investigation.

Social community violence

- 88.9% of the surveyed victims of social community violence abusers who were acquaintances or strangers were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Indirect damage

- Indirect damage is when one witnessed or heard about someone with a close relationship, such as a family member or a relative, who had suffered serious crimes and suffered a real death or death crisis or serious injury.
- 88.6% of the victims were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Suggestions

- Preventive action taken early after the trauma event can prevent the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. If appropriate intervention is made within 3 months after trauma, the diagnosis rate of post-traumatic stress disorder is low, and the earlier the intervention, the less likely the symptoms ar to worsen.
- It would be good to intervene in the treatment of trauma for all crimes, but there is also a need for a strategy to selectively take preventive measures against victims who are at high risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder.
- Priority should be given to making an act on special cases concerning the punishment and management of post-traumatic stress disorder resulted from sexual and domestic violence, in which currently special laws is in force.
- Furthermore, it is necessary o provide therapeutic support not only for the victims of crime directly but also for the surviving family. However, since the survivors of crime victims are not directly harmed by the perpetrators, they are restricted from being included in the current law as elements of crime.
- Australia
* In Australia, the legal definition of ‘personal injury’ is often used in a narrow sense to refer only to ‘physical harm’ in health and medical situations, but it also refers to ‘psychological harm’. It also has a legal meaning when it includes “psychological harm” or when psychological harm inherently causes physical harm. Thus, by law, both physical and psychological harm to an individual constitutes personal injury.
* Also, in the Australian Criminal Code(1995) dealing with psychological harm, the definition of “mental impairment” is briefly described in the section on the grounds for exemption of criminal liability under Chapter 2, General Principles of Criminal Liability.
* In Article 8 in the same clause, states that “mental impairment includes senility, intellectual disability, mental illness, brain damage and severe personality disorder.” Here in the section on ‘mental illness’ in paragraph 8, “mental illness refers to the underlying pathological infirmity of the mind, whether it is long, short, permanent or temporary. Does not include conditions caused by psychiatric responses to special external stimuli.
* In terms of the explicit use of evidence of injury, and especially A legislative method that can contribute to put in the statutory form, the idea that consider mental injuries as the establishment of a crime.

Chapter 4. Analysis of Foreign Laws and Practices on Crime Victims Trauma

Legislation on Assistance for Mental Injury

- England
* Compensation for mental injuries is made by clearly distinguishing physical and mental injuries through the victim compensation tariff.
- United States of America
There are major areas of law in the United States that deal with trauma-related programs. In 2005, the Office of Crime Victims (OVC) and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) established a special law enforcement team and victim services to combat trafficking and conducted the program.
The Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence develops and distributes Foto Novelas in 20 Florida states. There is a Children's Justice Act, the legal guardianship of child trauma.
* On the other hand, every state in the United States manages a victim compensation program that provides financial assistance for each victim.
- Australia
* Compensation injury includes not only physical injury but also mental shock or aftereffect.
* The New South Wales Crime Victims Compensation Act subdivides the type of injury and the amount of compensation into 291. Psychological of Psychiatric Disorders should be chronic and not temporary, and divided into two levels.
* Namely, $ 7,500 to $ 15,000 for moderately disabling Category 1 victims, and $ 30,000 to $ 50,000 for severely disabling Category 2 victims, respectively.
- Germany
* It is intended to provide compensation for physical and mental damages to victims and their families who have been injured or killed by intentional violent crimes on the territory of Germany and in German national vessels and aircraft, Compensation range is widely applied.
* According to the type of crime, 1) victims of domestic violence, violence against women, abuse of children and sexual violence, 2) victims of theft or robbery, and 3) victims of racist violence, the police are required to Duty to inform.
* It is unusual to pay compensation for property crimes such as theft or robbery.
- Austria
* Protection and support for crime victims in Austria is done indirectly through NGOs and directly through the state. The former is in the form of a consignment by a national agency contracted with a private victim protection and support organization, and the latter is the state's economic compensation to victims of crime.
* The legal basis of the direct system is the Crime Victims Act, which has been injured by illegal and intentional acts for free use for more than 6 months of social security compensation support, and has resulted in physical injury or health damage, a person who suffered a psychological infringement corresponding to a disease or a person who did not participate in such an act, suffered a physical injury or a health injury, but is not authorized to apply for compensation under the National Compensation Law, and incurs medical expenses due to an injury, etc. If reduced, compensation is possible.
- Japan
* The amount of survivor benefits and disability benefits is calculated based on the age of the victim or the amount of income earned by working.
* Severe illness benefits should be for at least one month of treatment and at least three days in hospitalization, and for mental illnesses such as PTSD due to crime damage, If the symptom is incapable of engaging in labor for more than three days, it is eligible even without a hospital stay.
* It may be noted that benefits for mental illness may be lessened than in the case of physical injuries (which are subject to payment without being hospitalized).

Chapter 5. Criminal Policy Response to Crime Victims Trauma

Ambiguity of trauma concept and limitations of PTSD diagnosis

- There is a need to discuss the necessity to define trauma somewhat narrowly, concretely and clearly, such as murders, attempted murders, assaults causing serious injuries, and rape.
- In addition, PTSD is a brain injury, or injury, has already been proved by various studies, so there is no controversy. However, Note that acknowledging PTSD alone as psychological sequelae can be unfairly perceived by the victim and can result in side effects such as overdiagnosis or exaggerated symptoms.

Ensure objectivity of PTSD diagnosis

- Since the PTSD is a 'brain' part of the body, the neurological examination should be included as long as there is no specific reason for the PTSD confirmation process, and need to get an appraisal through two or more specialists (mental health specialists, neurologists, clinical psychologists, etc.) ['Severe symptom severity rating scores of two or more related professionals']
- In addition, other psychological problems other than PTSD should be included in the after-effect disability.

Examination of event related measures of sequelae

- The presence or absence of Anamnesis (a mental illness that has existed before the event), factors that exacerbate symptoms after the event (e.g. drinking, divorce not related to the event, stress such as the death of someone unrelated to the event), and the intensity of the symptoms determine ‘event relatedness of sequelae’ according to whether the intensity of the symptoms corresponds to the severity of the event(e.g., ust witnessing someone's genitals exposed to persistent PTSD symptoms vs. PTSD after unsuccessful murder).

Need for early intervention and support of survivors

- If appropriate psychological interventions are carried out early, the development of chronic post-traumatic stress disorder can be prevented.
- Expansion of therapeutic support for not only those directly affected by crime but also survivors.

Need for extensive diagnosis

- Support should be provided for a wide range of psychiatric illnesses, dependingon the victim's symptoms.

Caution about suicide

- Proactively identify signs of suicide attempts and suicide plans, and take appropriate countermeasures in the long term as well as immediately after the incident.

Comprehensive support, not discrimination

- It is more important to find ways to provide high quality protection to all victims than to worry about discriminatory support. To this end, it is necessary to examine in-depth the operation status of the currently provided protection support system and to consider practical considerations to improve efficiency.

Supplementary: Necessity to study the perpetrator trauma

- In particular, the PTSD study of prisoners (offenders) in prisons has a large criminal policy purpose, including correction and re-crime prevention, and additional research is required.