Confirming the Obvious, Korean Researchers Link Alcohol Abuse to Domestic & Sexual Violence

Here is another one of those reports that a lot of resources is spent on to confirm the obvious:

When Lee Tae-ho, a social worker at the National Child Protection Agency, last year visited a 7-year-old at his home upon request from his school teacher, nothing seemed too out of place at first.

“My mother drinks a lot of water when she’s eating,” the child told him about his single mother.

It didn’t take long for Lee to realize that the “water” was in fact the colorless Korean alcoholic beverage soju.

Unemployed and depressed since her bitter divorce, the mother would drink about 20 bottles of soju a week, and would fail to provide basic care for her young children. The boy and his sister, 6, would skip dinner most days. A number of times, the suicidal mother asked them if it “would be better if they all killed themselves together.”

As a social worker working for a state-run agency, Lee said he has personally witnessed many domestic violence abusers with drinking problems.

Lee’s observation was demonstrated in a recent study, which found a significant connection between alcohol abuse and domestic and sexual violence in South Korea.

The scholarly article from Dongguk University, which surveyed 4,851 arrested individuals for violent crimes last year, showed that 73.1 percent of the domestic violence abusers and 67.9 percent of sex offenders committed their offenses while under the influence of alcohol.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link, but one thing of interest in the report is that the researchers recommend that the system of giving more lenient punishment for crimes in Korea for being drunk needs to end.  The researchers believe that people with a history of drinking problems should instead get heavier punishments.