새로운 유형의 풍속영업 등장, 경찰의 고민, 그리고 몇가지 대안

Abstract

The expansion of the-adult entertainment industry with recent economic growth in modern society has not only led to the commercialization of sex but also distorted teenagers' attitude toward sexualities. There has been a surge in unusual sex businesses in South Korean society. In fact, a new style of illegal adult entertainment business such as ‘Kiss Room’, ‘Mirror Room’, ‘Anteroom’ and abnormal sex massage parlor is causing substantial social problems. Despite these serious social toxicities, however, law enforcement officers are not able to timely regulate it due to the absence of legislation. Although the ‘Law of Regulation on Sex and Entertainment Business’ was passed 20 years ago, this bill currently does not have any tangible effect to control the new types of illegal business flourishing in South Korea. It is because the legislation only covers limited spectrum of sex and entertainment industry. Especially, places like “Kiss Room”, where prostitution and “quasi-prostitution” businesses can take place, become the safe haven for an ‘unregulated business.’It is difficult to even estimate how many this kind of shops are in operation, because most of these business are not required to get permission from a government for opening. The absence of relevant legal code is the fundamental problem for police officers. It almost makes law enforcement crackdown efforts unfruitful unless officers actually come across the scene of sexual intercourse when such actions take place. To make matters worse, even in cases when the onsite arrest was successful,the premise can continue to open for business, because legal code for shutdown of the business does not exist. Unbalanced regulation activities by police department and local government is another problem, which results in overwhelmingly heavy workload for the former. In this paper, the authors provide several suggestions for solving the these problems. First of all, the whole revision of the current “Law of Regulation on Sex and Entertainment Business” is necessary. New legislation needs to specify the obligation of the employers and address the need to introduce behavioral regulation, which means to regulate by the service they provide. The revision should also focus on identifying what behavior of employers’ is prohibited. Furthermore, the amendment, if necessary, must concentrate not only on standardizing various penalty criteria with other legal regulations but also on preparing administrative sanctions including closure and suspension of harmful and ‘unregulated businesses’. Secondly, both the local government and police department should make an effort to regulate adult and entertainment business in a coordinated manner for its efficiency. Local government should regulate the establishments that require permission from the government. On the other hand, the police agency should regulate another establishments that do not require it. This division of work can serve as an effective model for dealing with a newly emerging variety of the sex business. Thirdly, there is a need to create specialized police unit for dealing with sex and entertainment business. In addition, instead of keeping up with uniformed national level crackdown without considering local characteristics, each police department should consider the jurisdictional circumstances to make the crackdown more selective and concentrated. In recent years, the authorities are making every effort to diminish new type of harmful industries. Unfortunately, new type of noxious establishments remains a blind spot in our society since there is no substantial regulation that can be applied to them. There is no doubt that this study will serve as a crucial stimulus to make public policy more effective and relevant.