More than 9-thousand sex offenders who committed rape in the last five years here in Korea have still not been caught, according to the National Police Agency.
Of the nearly 82-thousand sex crimes committed between 2007 and 2011, the offenders are still at large in nearly 9,200 cases.
The arrest rate for sex offenders went down last year compared to five years ago, while the number of sex crimes involving children increased during the same period, the NPA data showed.
One out of five sex crimes was committed by a neighbor or close acquaintance and in one out of three cases, the offenders claimed to be drunk during the commission of the crime.
The police say they will start from square one and try to re-investigate all unsolved cases,.. especially those that could involve repeat sex offenders.
Meanwhile, the ruling Saenuri Party's presidential nominee Park Geun-hye has expressed her support for maintaining the death penalty.
She said that with the death penalty in place, criminals would realize that they, too, could die if they do harm to others.
Although Korea has a death penalty on its books, it has not been carried out for 15 years, leading Amnesty International to classify it as "abolitionist in practice."
Former President Kim Dae-jung halted executions after he took office in 1998.
Lee Ji-yoon, Arirang News.

Reporter : jiyoonjlee@arirang.co.kr