9th Yanghyeongwi Revises Sentencing Guidelines for 'Drug Crimes'... Recommended Sentences Changed

Revision of Sentencing Guidelines for 7 Crimes Including Drugs, Intellectual Property Rights, and Stalking

The court has decided to revise the sentencing guidelines for drug-related crimes, which have faced criticism for having light sentences despite the annual increase in drug offenders.

The Supreme Court Sentencing Commission (Chairman Lee Sang-won) held its 125th plenary meeting and announced on the 13th that it has resolved the tasks to be undertaken by the 9th Commission during its two-year term.

As a result of the resolution, the Commission decided to revise the sentencing guidelines for ▲intellectual property crimes ▲stalking crimes ▲drug crimes ▲animal abuse crimes ▲fraud crimes ▲violations of the Electronic Financial Transactions Act ▲and sex crimes.

For intellectual property crimes, the plan is to reflect legal amendments by establishing statutory penalties for the overseas leakage of trade secrets and introducing new elements for acts involving the leakage or infringement of national core technologies. Regarding stalking crimes, considering the increase in serious stalking offenses and the substantial accumulation of sentencing cases since the Stalking Crime Punishment Act came into effect in October 2021, the Commission decided to set sentencing guidelines reflecting strong public demand and practical necessity.

In the case of drug crimes, the Commission judged that there is high demand from society as well as frontline prosecutors and police for revising the sentencing guidelines, and that systematic maintenance of the guidelines is also necessary. Therefore, it plans to comprehensively review the classification of drug crime types, changes to the recommended sentencing ranges, sentencing factors, and probation criteria.

Regarding sex crimes, the Commission resolved that it is necessary to establish sentencing guidelines considering that there are currently no guidelines for molestation in crowded public places, molestation by abuse of authority in the workplace, sexual assault on supervisees, and sexual assault on protected persons.

The Commission will proceed with sentencing data investigations and draft preparation to derive sentencing guideline proposals for each crime category and will research and study related specific issues.

Additionally, the Commission’s term will be divided into two periods: April this year to April next year (first half) and April next year to April 2025 (second half). In the first half, it plans to revise the sentencing guidelines for intellectual property crimes, stalking crimes, and drug crimes, and in the second half, it will work on revising the guidelines for the remaining crimes.

Following the resolution to revise the sentencing guidelines for intellectual property crimes such as trade secret infringement, the prosecution expressed its intention to actively cooperate. Prosecutor General Lee Won-seok said, "With technology leakage crimes selected as a target for sentencing guideline revision by the Sentencing Commission, we expect stronger protection of industrial technology. We will do our best to conduct strict investigations into technology leakage crimes, which are directly linked to economic security, while also focusing on protecting small and medium-sized enterprises from technology theft damage."