ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

Since April 2015, police investigators have been mandating the Victims' Rights and Assistance Guide for all crime victim investigations to protect the rights of the victims and promote welfare. This study evaluates the general perception of the crime victims rights and examines how the legal terms used in the guide, which are deemed difficult for the general public to understand, are interpreted and understood. Specifically, 73 adult participants were asked to provide meanings of specific legal terms used in the guide and examined the general perceptions of the guide as well. The results showed that participants generally recognized that the system for providing a guide to crime victims was highly necessary, but the contents of the guide were not understood properly. Among the legal terms used in the guide, ‘report of trials’ and ‘final and conclusive judgments’ as well as ‘appeal’ and ‘an application for a ruling’ were poorly understood and misinterpreted. This suggests the need to minimize the use of certain legal terms in the guide and present them in easier for the general public to comprehend or to provide additional explanations to terminologies. Finally, policy implications and limitations of the study were also discussed.

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