전시총동원체제기 朝鮮司法保護委員制度의 성립과 항만정신대 파견

Abstract

In order to maintain the legitimacy, stability, and efficiency of its colonial rule, the Japanese Empire sought to exert totalitarian control over the colonized Koreans who refused to comply with its policies of ruling and rebelled against them. They were criminalized for disturbing public peace and order, and were detained and punished in a coercive, forceful, and arbitrary manner. However, simply isolating them from society temporarily was not enough to deal with the growing number of offenders. Thus, a ‘protection for offenders’ was implemented. The fundamental aim behind the protection of offenders was to reintegrate them into society, thereby reducing the expenses incurred for their judicial and criminal administration. The Japanese Empire recognized the judicial protection project as one that could not be neglected in ensuring public peace, as well as being devoted to the productive sector, for Japan that was under a state of the decisive battle. The Korean Judicial Protection Project Ordinance and the Korean Judicial Protection Officer Ordinance, which were enacted for this purpose, set up the judicial protection project to include thought offenders, juvenile offenders, and general offenders (common offenders). However, probation centers and preventive detention centers had already been established for thought offenders by the 1936 Korean Thought Offender Probation Ordinance, the 1941 Korean Thought Offender Preventive Detention Ordinance, and the amendment to the Public Peace Maintenance Act; juvenile courts and houses of correction were to be established by the 1942 Korean Juvenile Ordinance and the Korean House of Correction Ordinance. As special government offices and authoritative bodies already existed for the judicial protection of thought offenders and juvenile offenders respectively, these ordinances focused on general offenders and juvenile offenders outside the jurisdiction of juvenile courts. To this end, the Japanese Government-General of Korea selected judicial protection officers and assigned them to each borough of protection. In addition, the Judicial Protection Committee, a guidance and training organization for protection officers, was established in each district court prosecutor’s office in Gyeongseong, Daejeon, Hamhung, Chungjin, Pyongyang, Sinuiju, Haeju, Daegu, Busan, Gwangju, and Jeonju. In August 1943, the government began laying the groundwork for mobilizing judicially protected subjects for work, and the following year, in March 1944, judicially protected subjects were organized into port dedication corps, which were mobilized to ports designated by the Korea Maritime Transport Corporation and forced to work. Initially, 3,100 people were to be dispatched to 6 ports, but by April 1945, the plan was revised to dispatching 5,550 people to 13 ports. Furthermore, the Governor-General sought to transform judicially protected subjects into a group compliant to rules, much like prisoners in a penitentiary. This shows that the reason why the legislation of the judicial protection project, which had been stalling, was achieved at a certain point in time was to forcibly mobilize all offenders in colonial Korea, including judicially protected subjects, to work.