한국사회에서의 다문화 갈등과 외국인 범죄

Abstract

It is said that now the number of foreigners who reside in Korea reaches about 1.5 million as it has been explosively increasing for the recent 10 years. For the Koreans who have lived as a homogeneous race for several thousand years, the exchange with other foreigners who have different languages and races is still unfamiliar. Thus, in Korean society now, a new conflict situation, that is, cultural conflict between Koreans and foreigners, which has never been experienced by Koreans, is developing, due to the rapid transition into multi-cultural society. By the way, from the viewpoint of Koreans, if Koreans are asked to point out the most fundamental factor causing the multi-cultural conflict in Korean society, it may be Koreans’ dislike against a variety of crimes committed by foreigners who stay in Korea. Now, it is the actual situation that Koreans’ concern especially about violent crimes committed by illegal foreign laborers and the voices complaining about Government and Ministry of Justice’s passive counteraction is growing more and more. Therefore, it seems that it may be very hard for the multi-culture to smoothly settle down in Korean society, without solving this problem. Thus, the author came to start the study on this matter as the author thought that it is very important to effectively manage the illegal foreign laborers among the foreigners who live in Korea and to establish the counterplan against their crimes, in order to reduce the multi-cultural conflict and minimize the side effect of the transition into multi-cultural society. This study raises the issue in the introduction part, and it looks into the concept of multi-culture and the multi-cultural factors in Korean society in the body, and then discusses the actual status of foreigners’ crime and the counterplan against it. In regard with the counterplan against crimes, this study tried to present the counterplan that is appropriate for our reality, as it introduced foreign countries’ legislation or cases. From the author’s viewpoint, it is thought that a method as well as an effective counterplan to reduce multi-cultural conflict is for the law enforcement to reinforce the management and control over illegal immigrants, to remove citizens’ concern about crimes by strengthening the prevention activities against the places where foreigners intensively reside, at the same time, to prepare for the policy that gradually overcomes alienation through the expansion of cultural exchange with foreigners who have a variety of culture.