The disgruntled 70-year-old man who burnt down Seoul’s historic Sungnyemun Gate has been sentenced to 10 years in the pen.
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Sungnyemun Arsonist Gets 10 Years
This entry was written by Robert Koehler, posted on April 25, 2008 at 11:19 am, filed under South Korea. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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31 Comments
Too bad Korean prisons don’t have ass raping!
Question for anyone with law experience here- Brendon maybe- will he do the full 10 or will it be like back home where it gets drastically reduced with good behavior?
I’m not sure why I’m asking, but how do you know that Korean prisons don’t have ass raping?
And why is everyone always so sure that that sort of thing happens in prisons? Or, is everyone just going by what they saw in Shawshank Redemption?
For a 70-year-old man, 10 years is basically a life sentence, isn’t it? I assume that he’ll get out as soon as he gets sick to the point where they’re afraid he’ll die in prison. But I’m not a lawyer.
It’d be ironic if his prison caught on fire.
#2,
Korean prisons don’t have ass raping- at least not on a mjor scale- because I know a few who have spent some time there.
American prisons do have a lot of ass raping because I used to work with several ex-cons back in university. The stories I heard let me know that you would not be safe in prison unless you are one big, bad mofo and you have connections to the gangs.
A former Canadian prison guard told me that the only way to truly protect yourself is to request “protective custody due to fears of safety”- it’s what they do to cops who have been sent to prison, so they won’t get killed. Basically, it’s like solitary in that you don’t really have any contact with other prisoners.
Questions answered?
Why are we talking about ass-raping?
I think because people who aren’t going to prison themselves, don’t know anyone in prison, and who have never even visited a prison are amused by swaggering references to depraved torments inflicted on prisoners by other prisoners. Ha ha.
But the fact is, people go to prison for a number of reasons. They’re not all child molesters and murderers. Wesley Snipes didn’t pay his taxes. Some guys get pinched with a dime bag of weed. Other guys shoplift a Mennen Speed Stick. And so-called “deadbeat Dads” struggling to get by themselves sometimes get jailed over child support.
Laughing about other citizens getting beaten up and forcibly sodomized because they’re “criminals” isn’t right. That the state allows such things to go on — in the name of its “good citizens” — is despicable.
Fuck, Brendon, when the hell did you turn into a mindless, hippy liberal?!
#6 …I agree with you almost 100%, this type of “prison justice” but when I heard about a child molester in my hometown who was in jail a few days before they found his body stuffed into a washing machine, I can’t help but think that those big badass mofo’s do some service to society by executing those that we can’t (due to morality)… thososame mofo’s who are unlikely to ever leave the prison system… irony of some sort…
Well… as it happens in prisons here in the states, he could, uh, ahem… slip on a bar of soap and fall chest first into a sharp metal shank. Child molesters in jail must have a poor sense of balance because it happens to them a lot.
“American prisons do have a lot of ass raping because I used to work with several ex-cons back in university.”
American prisons have ass-raping because you used to work with several ex-cons back in university?
National treasure gets burned = Pillow biting?
Let’s not forget that in addition to all the guilty people in jail, there are a number of innocents there too. For them to endure such depredations is a failure of public morality. Ha ha — he got raped for years in prison and then was eventually exonerated! What a hoot.
I was just joking about this guy deserving an ass raping. Maybe I shouldn’t have.
Some criminals absolutely do deserve worse than just a prison sentence- child molesters, rapists, serial killers.
Not all cons deserve this, but some do.
Mr. Mao, apparently you didn’t read my whole post. I got to hear about all sorts of horrible things that go on in the pen from them. They warned me to never, ever go to the big house.
I knew some dipshit was going to call me on that one. Congratulations on your ‘you think you know everything’ brain!
Now, it also depends on what prison you’re going to. Federal prisons have a lot of white collar crime and less violent inmates. State pen is where you’re in danger. I have heard from both ex-cons and former guards that it is horrible. The guards control the walls, but they have very little control of what goes on inside them.
That guy who set the Daegu subway in fire does deserve years of ass raping!
Having spent three days in jail on a trumped up charge (that was later thrown out), I totally agree with Brendan on that issue. Too many people are in jail and prison who really shouldn’t be there–and they’re the ones who become hamburger meat while the wardens sit back and see it as entertainment. And people and judges on the outside get caught up in that simplistic binary mentality that if you’ve been arrested you MUST be guilty.
“Laughing about other citizens getting beaten up and forcibly sodomized because they’re “criminals” isn’t right. That the state allows such things to go on — in the name of its “good citizens” — is despicable.”
Absolutely.
I’m in full agreement — it ain’t funny (and isn’t “justice” either).
He’s lucky one of my students wasn’t the judge: she wanted to see him publicly executed to erase the shame Korea had done to its ancestors by allowing the gate to be burned down.
Yeah, I’m surprisingly in agreement with something Mr. Carr said. It boggles the mind that people are so amused by prison violence and rape. Not just internet weirdos, either, but you’ll notice how you’ll find similar jokes all over sitcoms, talk shows, and newspapers. Hahaha, a guy’s going to jail . . . hope he doesn’t drop the soap! Why on earth this is tolerated, while our culture has insanely knee-jerk reactions to sexual harassment “on the outside,” is beyond me. Somebody doing time, regardless of the offense, oughtn’t be subjected to rape or have their lives threatened on a daily basis. Going to prison shouldn’t be a death sentence. Sadly, our prisons work as well as you’d expect a building full of criminals and gang members to work. Doesn’t help when you have undereducated cretins drunk on power working as guards.
Oh, and yeah, 10 years sounds about right for this guy.
Brian & Brendon, I agree that it is horrible and should not be an automatic for every prisoner.
However, that’s pretty much the way it is and I don’t see it changing, maybe ever.
You and others have pointed out that most in society believe that convicts in the pen deserve what is coming to them. They never stop to think about those who have been wrongly convicted and what have you.
It is barbaric, but i just don’t see any reform in the near future.
As per a very recent NY Times article on how many people are in jail back in the US. I’m curious: how many people posting here have a relative in jail or one that has been in jail. I have one oddly enough.
#21 - My cousin was in for a couple of years. He was (is?) a member of an organization that likely would have given him a measure of immunity against that kind of abuse. Unfortunately, it is those very connections that are likely to result in him going back in at some point if he doesn’t stay away from them on the outside.
I have a cousin in prison, sad to say.
My cousin was a member of one of those organizations that is big in the pen.
Let’s just say their initials are AB. He was well on his way to being an inmate until he realized what direction his life was taking.
He reformed himself and, ironically, became a prison guard.
Now, he’s a parole officer.
I’ve had to visit friends who were locked up and that is no picnic!
For those who DO believe in ass rape for prisoners…I’m curious…where’s the cut-off for those that should be raped and those that should not be?
FYI and honestly, I have mixed feelings about this. I would like to believe that I dont wish an ass rape on anyone, regardless of their crime. At the same time, I wouldnt shed a tear if someone like OJ got double penetrated.
Benicio -+ “American prisons do have a lot of ass raping because I used to work with several ex-cons back in university.”
Just think if you hadn’t worked with ex-cons in University, the US could be as free of ass-raping as Korea. What did you do to have such a profound influence on those ex-cons to get them back into prison abd turn them unto as ass-rapers.
@#24
I think everyone has that dilemma between human rights and vigilantism. While everyone has enough decency to frown and even abhor the practice of… ass-raping, there’s still that side of everyone who wants to see retributive justice (well… not necessarily see) carried out.
I guess everyone has different brightlines. Personally, I don’t wish ass-raping for anyone… mostly because I’m a bleeding-heart flaming social liberal. But I can definitely see myself cheering for one (once again, not in person) when it concerns someone like Timothy McVeigh, Osama, etc.
@#20:
No blood relatives have ever been in jail. The eldest son of my mother’s ex-husband is in a federal prison for interstate trafficking in child pornography. Compelled by Christian values of compassion and forgiveness, my mother and grandmother sent letters to him in prison. In his replies, he horrified the little old ladies with revolting stories of prison sex. Correspondence ceased. I’d say he’s beyond the cut-off Tom mentioned in comment #24.
As the NYT story noted and Brendon reminded us in comment #6, one reason why our prison population is huge is because we incarcerate people for non-violent offenses, even minor ones thanks to those three-strikes laws.
#26 Arghaeri, it took you 2 whole days to come up with that?
Don’t hurt yourself!
#29 Benicio,
Nah, five minutes, but some of us have jobs and a life so can’t get onto the Marmot every waking hour.
Well, you don’t have much of an intellect or sense of humor, that’s for sure!
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