It was vacation time and few students were on campus. The journalist had made an appointment to meet the professor and was greeted kindly. The professor has been working with criminals for over 20 years studying their proclivities and thinking. She is the first one in Korea to have taken up the study of the psychology of criminals. It was only in the past 2 or 3 years that she felt a need to make her studies known to the public.
From her studies the use of electronic tagging, criminal justice policies have been influenced. She is busy with advising those in the field of criminal justice and answering questions for the media.
She gave the example of stalking and the reasons for its prevention for often it results in harm to the women pursued. She uses this to show the steps that need to be taken to prevent acts that often precede the crimes.
Why aren't we able to help the defenseless children facing sexual abuse and violence. She is filled with shame and recalls the case of a criminal who violated an eight-year-old child that was playing in the morning before attending school because both parents had to work.
The child was assaulted brutally and even her internal organs were damaged. She was fortunate to be alive. This incident became known to the public and many things began to change: electronic tagging, making known the criminal publicly, abrogated was the need to file a complaint before legal procedures could begin. A big step in protecting the rights of victims
The professor emphasized that the environment in the family is important. If we can learn why crime does not arise we will have the answer clearly for why it does. The reason I am not doing something criminal is that I am able to control myself because as a child I was taught how to do this by parents. When a child commits a crime in the United States they investigate the family and punish the family when warranted. Children are often sent to institutions that will give them the moral training they lack. The professor feels this is missing in our society.
She has made studies of thousands of prisoners and the number of sexual crimes are few and sentences from 2 to 3 years. In Korea, the average numbers of sexual crimes in a year is about 30 thousand and with children about 3,000. It is not lower than other countries. The problem is that society doesn't realize that sexual crimes are as terrible as murders. The victims have to live with the pain which society doesn't see.
She wanted to have interviews with those in prison for sexual crimes to understand better her studies but being a woman and a private individual was refused. She felt that she wasn't able to do everything possible and got a replacement in teaching and went to Texas in the United States where the prisons were many, to continue her studies. She prepared herself to return to Korea and begin interviewing prisoners. Results from the interviews have helped many in their work.
She left the ivory tower and books to hear those in prison not as a lawyer but like a mother or an aunt. She has never received a threatening telephone call and has received letters from those who have been released from prison explaining what they were doing. Her work is to help the many defenseless people in society with the knowledge that she has acquired in her work. She is speaking to those who have ears ready to hear and the interviewer prays she will continue in her work for many more years.
