Joo Ho-young of the opposition Grand National Party...

Joo Ho-young of the opposition Grand National Party said he believed the death penalty could only be abolished when society in South Korea was more mature. Until then it should be retained, considering public sentiment, he said.
Cho Dong-kun, an official of a civic group Citizens United for Better Society, also favoured retention.
"Although it is hard to prove in terms of statistics that the death penalty prevents crimes, I'm sure it makes a potential criminal think twice before committing a crime," he said. "Having the death penalty as a law has a psychological effect on people."
He noted that Korea hadn't carried out an execution in seven years, "so it will soon be classified as an abolitionist, in practice anyway."
A nationwide coalition against the death penalty was founded in 1989 by Rev. Moon Jang-shik, who ha been doing evangelical work with condemned criminals and providing them with spiritual guidance for the past 20 years. He had been present at all executions held since 1983.
He categorize capital punishment as eye-for-an-eye revenge, or institutionalized murder.
"There were so many cases of misjudgment in the past. In Korea, the death penalty is supposed to apply to planned murders and the life sentence to accidental manslaughters. However, quite a few who fell into the second category were wrongly convicted as being in the first," he said.
Amnesty International said it was hard to find any evidence that the death penalty deterred crimes. Rather, it said, statistics proved the contrary.
For example, in Canada, the homicide rate per 100,000 population fell from a peak of 3.09 in 1975, the year before the abolition of the death penalty for murder, to 2.41 in 1980. In 2002, 26 years after abolition, the rate was 1.85, 40 percent lower than in 1975.
"Capital punishment doesn't stop killers. It is education on the importance of life that we must focus on," Moon said.
Kim In-sun, a law professor at Sunchunhyang University, did research which highlighted some interesting facts.
None of 101 people who were executed between the years 1989 and 1997 received a college education, 40 had finished just elementary school, and six never went to school. Also, 63 were jobless. These results appeared to suggest most lacked economic or social privileges.