자유형규정의 개정방안

Abstract

The extending of the maximum imprisonment years by double in the partial amendment of the Criminal Act in April 15, 2010, has resulted in an unreasonable outcome of doubling the maximum years of imprisonment for every crime in the special criminal section of the Criminal Act. In the following paper, problems from raising the maximum years of imprisonment along with the amendment job done by Special Committee of Criminal Act Amendment will be pointed out, and revision of improving the imprisonment years will be discussed. It is advisable for the imprisonment regulation to be revised as below. The imprisonment with or without labor, and detention should be sorted under one category of punishment on freedom. There is no ground theoretically, or under criminal policy that needs to differentiate between imprisonment with punitive labor or just imprisonment. Also, it is advisable to decriminalize minor offenses that require detention, since detention has a negative side in residing in correctional institutions. In addition, detention provisions that are optional in the Criminal Act need to be taken out, or be replaced with a fine penalty. Moreover, the weighted maximum years of imprisonment and general maximum years should remain as 25 years, and 15 years respectively as regulated under the current Criminal Act. However, in the case of reducing capital punishment or the reduction of life imprisonment, it must be reduced to the same level of 25 years as the weighted maximum year of imprisonment. In this way, the gap between life imprisonment and imprisonment will be closer and will provide the judge the ability to execute reasonable weighting of imprisonment years in an offense. Therefore, the maximum 30/50 years of imprisonment adjusted in the amendment of the Criminal Act in March 2010 should be revised. Lastly, the imprisonment of less than 6 months should be categorized as short term imprisonment, and a provision should be enacted to allow such imprisonment to be replaced with monetary penalty, unless there is a situation that is inevitable for the offender.