Public Sentiment on Grant Benefits for Criminals

Cho Doo-soon, a convicted child rapist recently applied for basic livelihood grants for senior citizens. He was released from prison on December 12 after serving over a decade in jail for kidnapping, beating, and raping a young girl.

Netizens were outraged at Doo-soon’s application for National Basic Livelihood Security. According to the news website The Korea Herald, people voiced their complaints on the official website of the presidential office and appealed to the government not to give Doo-soon the welfare allowances.

With this issue at hand, the Real Research team ventured to find out the public sentiment regarding this issue. We asked our users to answer questions regarding their opinion on the topic.

Highlights

• Participants strongly disagree with approving Doo-soon’s application for welfare benefits.
• Public opinion reflects a highly negative sentiment when asked if criminals should get benefits from citizen’s taxes.
• When asked what benefits they think are fitting for criminals, participants chose Free Meal Service, Daily Necessity Support, and Medical Help as the top results.
• Participants comprise of South Koreans ages 21 – 65.

Public Opinion on Doo-soon’s Grant Application

The answers to this very sensitive issue are not unanimous. Although a large segment (63.1%) does not want to give him the grant, a substantial percentage (36.9%) thinks that he should get this benefit.

More specifically, 49.6% chose the answer “We are not paying the tax for criminals. This is unacceptable” while 13.5% picked “Criminals should have been legally blocked for this benefit from the beginning.” Combined, this accounts for 1,777 respondents or 63.1 percent of the total participants.

The minority still comprises a significant amount of 36.9% — 25.1% believes that “They can be cornered and commit another crime without welfare benefits. We should just give them.” On the other hand, 11.7% think that “Criminals also have human rights. They deserve welfare benefits too.”

Sentiment on Criminals Receiving Benefits From Citizen Tax

Most of the respondents (61.1%) do not think that criminals should receive welfare benefits coming from citizens’ taxes. The second-biggest segment (28.7%) believes that they should. Lastly, a small number (10.3%) expressed that they are undecided and chose the answer “I don’t know.”

The data reflected above is consistent with the number of people who do not want to give Doo-soon the grant which is about 63.1 percent of respondents.

Views on Appropriate Welfare Service for Criminals

The results for this section highlights three results which are free meal service, medical help, and daily necessity support. Free meal service is the top result comprising 21.2 percent of participants. Daily necessity support took 18.5 percent of the votes. Coming in on third is medical help with 18 percent.

Minority answers also surfaced. Two options namely Financial support and Nothing got lower votes with the former at 4.9 percent and the latter at 3.9 percent.

Lastly, the answer with the most votes (33.5%) is Others.