A view of the Supreme Prosecutors Office building in southern Seoul (Yonhap)
SEOUL, March 15 (Korea Bizwire) — Some law firms in South Korea are flourishing under the slogan of “sentence-reducing package for sexual crimes” and provide an apology letter writing service for sexual criminals.
Such services, however, turned out to have no effect in court.
The Supreme Prosecutors Office analyzed 91 major sexual crime cases reported during the period from June last year to February.
The analysis showed that there were no cases where the court recognized the defendant’s apology simply based on their submission of apology letters or donation data.
Of the 91 cases, there were only 27 cases where the defendant’s apology was counted as one of the sentencing-reducing factors.
These included cases where the defendant reached an agreement with the victim after confessing to the crime, made efforts to compensate the victim, or was a first-time offender.
In contrast, 35 cases didn’t recognize the defendants’ apology, citing excuses they stated in court and investigation agency or their attitude of blaming the victims.
In addition, there were 29 cases where the term ‘apology’ was not included in the verdict because the defendant only confessed to the crime without reaching an agreement or making efforts to compensate the victim.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
