초록

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Abstract ▼ AI-Helper

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is a type of disease which affects badly upon the lives of criminal victims but our legal system has not paid much attention on it for a long time. It is also true regarding sexual assault. The victims of sexual assault could not raise an issue about the disease they ...

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is a type of disease which affects badly upon the lives of criminal victims but our legal system has not paid much attention on it for a long time. It is also true regarding sexual assault. The victims of sexual assault could not raise an issue about the disease they were suffering, for the purpose of proving that the offender had committed the criminal act upon them and, as a consequence, their lives had been totally ruined and their mental health critically damaged. All that they could do was just to attend at the trial despite of the danger that they had to re-experience the life-threatening event in the course of confronting the defendant at the court. PTSD is a mental disease the effect of which may be severer than even the cerebral infarction. Some say that it is no less dangerous than cancer for the patient in the long run of life. It is reported that more than 30 % of victims of sexual crimes may suffer the disease, permanently or not, in their lives. We are thus insisting that our legal system must be ready to deal with those kinds of victims with various means of support such as victims’ advocate and restitution orders. The Act on the Protection of Criminal Victims announces that every victim is supposed to participate in the criminal process for the purpose of prosecuting the offender without any risk on their safety and health. However, as a matter of reality, PTSD victims are not effectively and carefully protected by the law enforcement personnel and the participants of the criminal process. It is the time to re-evaluate our legal system and find out what we have to do for keeping them safe from the secondary damage in the course of rebuilding justice and resuming their normal life.