Controversy over the question of whether a serious criminal suspects’s face may be revealed by the police or media had emerged since the sensational case of a serial killer Yoo Young-chul in Korean society. However, there exists no clear social consensus on the legitimacy or desirability of the disclosure of criminal suspect’s face in public, as evidently found in the existence of diverse standards adopted by public authorities and individual newspapers and broadcasters respectively. In this article, pros and cons of disclosing a criminal suspect’s face are introduced and possible suggestions in relation to present rules and regulations are offered by examining relevant critical issues from the points of constitutional and criminal laws.
For the purpose of solving the problems regarding the disclosure of a criminal suspects’ face in public, one needs to consider the danger of dichotomous thinking, the purposes of criminal punishment and the necessity of respecting individual’s human rights. Revealing a criminal suspect’s face in public should be strictly limited to the specific following cases. Disclosure of the suspect’s face may be permissible only if the police have obtained strong evidence of guilt with public interests. When the police have difficulties arresting the suspect even if it had evidence, disclosure of the suspect’s face would be necessary, so that citizens can tip off the police having identified the suspect’s identities. Moreover, such disclosure would be needed if there are reasonal doubts for additional crimes for the suspect under investigation. In this regard, the current law covering special cases concerning the punishment of specific violent crime should be re-examined for revision with special reference to the scope of specific violent crimes, basic requirements for the disclosure of the criminal suspects’s face in public.