• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.10 no.spc
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• pp.69-86
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• 2004

A review of literature revealed that damaged self-confidence of men as social agents may be the primary, if not proximal, cause of domestic violence. Accumulated damages in social confidence and self-assurance may be moderated by action repertoire acquired during childhood, and mediated by adulthood circumstances such as marital discords and the lack of social support to result in the typical cycle of violence and subsequent feeling of remorse. The present treatments for the domestically violent men in Korea seem to be ineffective to reduce the number of incidents in the society because the treatments are viewed as punishments by the men, damage their social confidence further by stigmatizing them in the community, and destroy their social resources and support systems. It was suggested in this paper to reduce the role of law enforcement and correctional administration to rehabilitate the currently violent men. At the same time, it was also suggested for the Korean court to implement the paradigm of Therapeutic Jurisprudence in handling domestic violence cases. It was argued that the court should take active roles as a healing and rehabilitating agent by cooperating with non-government community establishments such as hospitals, universities and self-help organizations. The reasons and implications of those suggestions were discussed in detail.