Under Korean Criminal Act, the crime of gambling leads to either imprisonment or fine. The purpose of imprisonment is to resocialize the criminal through education and shock; remind the importance of law-observance to people; and free the society from...
Under Korean Criminal Act, the crime of gambling leads to either imprisonment or fine. The purpose of imprisonment is to resocialize the criminal through education and shock; remind the importance of law-observance to people; and free the society from insecurity of crime by depriving freedom from the criminal. But depriving freedom from the gambler does not have much relationship with the original purpose of imprisonment - protecting the society from dangers of crime by separating the criminal from society - because not only that the criminal himself is the victim but also there is little possibility of inflicting direct damage towards others. Furthermore, in extreme circumstances, short-term imprisonment will teach new crimes to those criminals who acted not upon evil character but by coincidence or speculation, either ending up in conspiring another crime with his cellmates or being unable to continue normal life due to his brand of crime. We must put a stop to this misery as well as find a more rational way to prevent repeating of these crimes and ironically, the answer is decriminalization of gambling from the Criminal Act.
The act of gambling is not a serious offence compared to other crimes under the Criminal Act, for it is a natural action originating from human nature of speculation. Furthermore, current punishment for gambling is rather harsh, considering that the criminal himself is simultaneously the victim due to uncertain nature of gambling with criminal's own property as hostage, that gambling culture is widespread in this society, that legal gambling is accepted by the government. Also, it is reported that possibility of suppressing criminals from committing another crime through fines and imprisonment is extremely low; rather, side-effects of short term imprisonment is more serious than benefits. Especially, current punishment is not feasible to prevent further offenses by erasing gambling habits from chronic gamblers, which is the most important aspect of criminalizing chronic gambling. Therefore, the most plausible solutions for chronic gamblers will be; educating gamblers by actively utilizing social cure programs in the short term, while eliminating imprisonment for chronic gambling in the long term. Instead of imprisonment, heavy fines with mandatory resocialization program would be an answer.
It is necessary to decriminalize gambling. One cannot compel moral aspects by punishment, and state interference upon this matter is rather superfluous. We must also consider the possibility of weakening punishments' influence when light and widespread offenses such as gambling is ruled as crime. Therefore, ruling gambling as an administrative offense by enacting "Offenses against Public Order Act" can be considered as an alternative.