Until the first half of twentieth century, criminal victims were beings overlooked in the field of criminal law. Generally, despite of the fact that ‘if crime exists, victim from that always exists’, paying attention to victims was thought to be v...
Until the first half of twentieth century, criminal victims were beings overlooked in the field of criminal law. Generally, despite of the fact that ‘if crime exists, victim from that always exists’, paying attention to victims was thought to be very exeptional. In other words, criminal victims were just the ones of the people being encounterd in the middle of investigation. This is because in the past, the study about criminal law theory has been focused on the point that which activity can be crime and which penalty can be imposed on criminals.
Recently, this concept about criminal victims has begun to be changed.
From the last half of twentieth century, crime victims have appeared as autonomous beings who can enjoy their own freedom and human dignity in the criminal law theory and system. And in the accomplishment of criminal law's purpose pursuing the substantial truth and the prevention of crimes, they can't be remained as outsiders anymore. This phenomenon can be easily found in the current study direction of Europe and English-American nations' laws and even in our neighboring Japan and China. we have to notice that the main content of Japan's criminal prodcedure law reformed in May, sixteenth, 2000 and China's criminal law reformed in 1997 was focused on the protection of criminal victims' rights.
But when we view our nation’s reality, we are very reluctant to find a way to guard crime victims' rights in comparison with other advanced nations in spite of the effort to arrange the systemic measures to protect them within the limited range. Therefore, in this situation of being required to discuss on the security of criminal victims' rights, I started this study in the intention of examining the present law's attitude toward the protection of them and suggesting the establishment of more effective law to protect them and society's strategic direction to support it through the comparative legal research.
The contents of this study are as follows.
Chapter 1 discusses the need of protecting criminal victims based on the phenomenon of victimization.
Chapter 2 examines foreign laws' examples about the protection of crime victims' rights through the comparative legal research.
Chapter 3 examines our nation's present law about the protection of crime victims' rights and points out the problem of that.
Chapter 4 suggests law's direction in legal system classified into the constitution, criminal law, criminal procedure law in the protection of crime victims' rights,
Chapter 5, the conclusion mentions strategies and supporting systems for crime victims.
This study concentrates on the protection of crime victims' rights in the field of Victimology and includes parts of other strategic, social supporting.
The method of this study was focused on the examining of various articles.
The main point of this study is as follows.
Until the present, we have made an effort to protect suspects, defendants, prisoners' rights excepting crime victims's rights. By this effort, in criminal law procedures and other systems, we can say that their human rights were somewhat guaranteed. It is originated from the thought that the law is not for the strong but for the weak and developed from the understanding that crime victims are stronger than suspects, defendants. This is because we only have paid attention to the unfair infringement on human rights that criminals can face as they became the objects of punishment, not considering the harm crime victims sometimes can't escape by that crime. But when we think about the equality and human dignity that the constitution guarantees, it is reasonable that crime victims also should be treated equally as criminals. But it is harsh reality that crime victims without a wrongdoning are treated like criminals more than real criminals, or even in the process of compesnation for the harm they get, they often suffer insults or the infringement on their human rights. Although some laws are being changed, they are still insufficient. In this situation, we need to recognize the fact that Germany, Japan, China have developed various measures systemically to protect the crime victims.