International Law

Korean Youth Losing Grip on Traditional Morality

The Korean branch of Transparency International announced the stunning results of a survey of 1100 middle and high-school students where the students were posed questions of morality and ethics, according to the JoongAng Ilbo English edition.

Shockingly, more than half of the students disapproved of excusing criminal activity by leaders who have contributed to the people’s well-being. Further, one out of five said they would use bribery to get things done (although another one out of five wasn’t sure). These results clearly show that Korea’s traditional public order faces complete breakdown. What are the schools doing? Where will the next generation of crook-coddling judges and crooked corporate chieftains come from? Even worse:

Some teenagers were willing to spend time in jail for money. Asked whether they would spend 10 years in jail in return for 1 billion won ($732,600), 18 percent said ?yes? while 65 percent said they would not.

That one of out five figure is great comfort to employers trusting staff with money, I’m sure. The remaining 17 percent correctly identified this one as a trick question: Everybody knows that stealing or embezzling a billion won usually gets the criminal a suspended sentence.

Full post as published by Korea Law Blog on October 23, 2008 (boomark / email).