불량식품사범의 형사처벌 결과에 따른 경찰활동의 개선방안

Abstract

The South Korean government implements food policies such as strengthen crackdown and criminal punishment to root out the adulterated food. Police accordingly crack down on the adulterated food by forming a task force in each police office and enforcement system for arresting adulterated food criminals. Also, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety sets up tougher sentences for offenders by amending the Food Sanitation Act several times. This study examines how many offenders who violated the Food Sanitation Act and arrested by police actually received criminal penalties, using official statistics which were provided by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the National Police Agency, the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the Court of Korea, etc. The analysis shows that the rate of offenders who were arrested by general judicial police office is three times higher than the special judicial police office in related organizations such as the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. Second, there were very few cases that the arrested offenders in violation of the Food Sanitation Act were taken into custody for investigation by prosecution. Third, seven out of ten arrested offenders were charged, the rest of them were not indicted by being suspended their indictment or cleared of suspicion. Fourth, six of ten arrested offenders were ex-convicts. Lastly, seven out of ten offenders who were charged by criminal trials were decided as pecuniary punishment, and the cases of sentence for imprisonment were fewer than sentence of acquittal. Thus, the rate of cases was very low that the adulterated food criminals who were arrested by police were sentenced as expected imprisonment sentence thereby strengthening punishment. As a result, the police should avoid excessive and indiscreet crackdown activities, form the professionals who are exclusively responsible for food crime, take food a profiling for food crime, and make a plan for building a cooperative investigation system with special judicial police office who are dedicated to food crime.