Korea Herald Joins the Hater Bandwagon

Recently, the Herald published a nice bit of filth:

"More sex crimes committed by foreigners" by Lee Ji-yoon.
(http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/10/20/200910200052.asp)

First I must point out that, as there are over one million foreigners, and approximately 20,000 English teachers, the foreigner article should be barely relevant on visa policy for English teacher. But wait, I predict it will be. ("Korean critical thought" has proven itself an oxymoron regularly and I expect no exception. A debate in spring in the Times showed an immigration official citing "increased drug crimes" as a reason to increase E-level visa regulations. Problem was, the "increased drug crimes" were committed by Thais, not native English speakers. But I digress.)

Second, there is reason to suspect sexual violence by foreigners would be far more reported than that by Koreans. The Kinsey Institute estimates the sex crime reportation rate to be at 6.1 percent, a far cry from the approximately-40% rate in most OECD nations. (http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/ccies/kr.php.) Kinsey also points out that gender disparity is absurd in Korea, with men enjoying far more power than women in just about every arena. The Grand Narrative (http://thegrandnarrative.wordpress.com/) just put up a nice piece, "Playholic," which quotes a female K-blogger as stating that women are shy to demand contraception from men for being seen as promiscuous in their social clique. The relation? Would an assaulted Korean woman report a Korean man who is more powerful than her and can destroy her social life, or an outsider? Clearly the latter. Hence we should not be asking ourselves, "What are foreigners doing?" rather we should ask, "What are Koreans doing that we do not know?"

Third, straight from the article: "While the nation's average indictment rate for sexual crimes was 45 percent in 2008, the rate for foreigners was 39.7 percent over the past eight years." This is followed by a cry for more indictment against foreigners. As a former defense attorney and prosecutor I can tell you, rapists are not not prosecuted (double negative intentional) just because they are foreign or leaving the country. However, a lot of sex crime complaints amount to lies (for attention or vengeance) or unprovable allegations. Would it be too much to ask the Korean government to rely on actual, proven guilt? Probably so, but I will nonetheless.

Finally, the article states that foreign arrests in 2009 are up over 40% from 2008. There is simply no explanation for this but selective enforcement. Consider: Group A and Group B both have 100 people and commit crime at a 10% (ten people) rate. The police, convinced Group B is deviant, monitor Group B's actions more closely by a factor of 2. At the end of the year, X (say 20%, 2) Group A citizens are arrested and 40% (4) of the non-law-abiding Group B citizens are. This gives rise to the statistic that Group Bs are twice as virulent as Group As. Rinse and repeat.

There has never, outside of riots or revolutions, been a criminal activity increase exceeding 40 percent. But the Seoul Police--who proudly gave an award to the overtly racist Anti-English Spectrum for citizen legal enforcement--could certainly be inept and biased.

I'd like to thank the Herald for running my piece, below. I'd like to not thank them for running the piece I just commented on.

If you follow "xenophobia" you'll see Sean Hayes' pointing out that this sort of idiocy is costing Korea money and visibility on the international stage.

Hey Koreans, do you want to be Japan junior (1) a lot longer or (2) no more? It's up to you.