Culture Conflict And Crime In The Korean- American Community

Like other immigrant groups, Korean-American offenders victimize their own people. These criminals have operated with near impunity since their victims have been afraid to report crimes to the police. Due to the lack of knowledge of American criminal law and the operations of the justice system in general, Korean immigrants attempt to avoid those institutions in their new homeland that they feared in Korea. The purpose of the present paper is to examine various cultural aspects of serious interpersonal violence among Korean immigrants that lead to official police response. Interpersonal violence seems to be a method of conflict resolution relied upon by Koreans in disputes involving honor. A propensity to punish someone physically who has dishonored another in the form of an insult, cheating, disrespect, or failure to keep one’s word—seems to b an acceptable method for redeeming or restoring the honor of the wronged parties. Such manifestations of violence are expressions of power, with physical force often taken to an extreme. The purpose is not just to right a wrong or administer just deserts; it must also serve to demonstrate control. As large numbers of Asian immigrants build new lives in this country, their customs collide with the American legal system. Sellin (1938) called this social phenomenon culture conflict; that is, the norms that are acceptable models of behavior in an immigrant group’s native culture conflict with the norms of behavior of the host culture. This conflict is thought to decline as immigrants are assimilated into the mainstream culture. Hurh and Kim (1984) report, however, that Korean immigrants have a strong attachment to their native culture regardless of their length of residence in the United States. Hurh (1977) argues that the majority of Korean immigrants remain out of the mainstream of American life because they typically are first-generation, CJPR, VOL. 4, NO.1/90, at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 6, 2016cjp.sagepub.comDownloaded fro