Case No. 2024-EQ-0223. Dating violence.
Taekyung interviewed Kang Yujin.
The interview room. White walls. Two chairs. Kang Yujin was sitting in the chair farthest from the door. She had her hood pulled up. Her fingers were fidgeting with the drawstring.
Taekyung spoke first.
“You can stop if this is too uncomfortable.”
Kang Yujin shook her head. Only her eyes were visible beneath the hood.
“It’s okay. I just want to get it over with.”
Taekyung began his questions.
“When did the assaults first begin?”
“Two months into the relationship. I was doing homework at a café with a male classmate. That night.”
“Where were you hit?”
“My cheek. At first, it was just my cheek.”
“Did you report it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Kang Yujin paused briefly. Her fingers tightened around the drawstring.
“Because he cried and apologized. He got down on his knees. Said he’d never do it again. I wanted to believe him, too.”
Taekyung took notes. He didn’t record emotions. Dates, body parts, frequency.
“The second time?”
“Three months in. Because I didn’t answer his calls. My ribs.”
“The third time?”
“Four months in. I don’t remember why. After that, there stopped being a reason.”
Taekyung’s pen never stopped moving. Kang Yujin’s voice grew quieter and quieter. There was no emotion left in it. It was the tone of someone who had told the story too many times. To the police, to counselors, to her parents. Repeating the same story wore the feelings away.
“Please describe your current symptoms.”
“Panic attacks. They happen when I hear a man’s voice loudly. On the subway, at convenience stores. It feels like my heart is going to burst, and I can’t breathe.”
“How often?”
“Three or four times a week. They’re not getting less frequent.”
“How are you sleeping?”
“Two or three hours. I wake up in the middle of the night. I dream. It’s always the same dream.”
Taekyung set down his pen.
“What kind of dream?”
For the first time, Kang Yujin looked into Taekyung’s eyes.
“He’s smiling. Like when we first met. Then he hits me. But in the dream, it doesn’t hurt. That’s scarier—the fact that it doesn’t hurt. Like I’ve gotten used to it.”
Taekyung said nothing. For three seconds.
“That’s enough. Thank you.”
Taekyung returned to his office and sat down.
He didn’t turn on the monitor. He stared at the ceiling.
Psychological harm.
Kang Yujin’s panic disorder, sleep disorder, and social phobia. He had to turn them into numbers. Physical harm was clear. A fractured rib was a fractured rib. A damaged eardrum was a damaged eardrum. You could see it on a CT scan. It could be measured.
But how did you measure a panic attack?
Heart rate? Cortisol levels? The duration of an attack? Even if you measured those, were the numbers the same as Kang Yujin’s fear?
Taekyung opened the enforcement decree of the Equivalent Retribution Act.
Article 14. “The assessment of psychological harm shall be based on objective measurements obtained through certified mental-health assessment tools, while comprehensively considering the cause of the harm, its duration, and the degree to which it limits daily life.”
Objective measurements.
Taekyung opened Kang Yujin’s psychiatric records again. A PCL-5 score of 67. Severe PTSD. A BDI-II score of 38. Severe depression. A GAD-7 score of 19. Severe anxiety.
The numbers existed. But how did you return those numbers to the offender?
Could he inflict mental suffering equivalent to a PTSD score of 67 on Lee Dohyun? Through drugs? By manipulating the environment? Would that suffering be the same as Kang Yujin’s?
Taekyung pressed beneath his right eye.
The door opened.
It was Hyunwoo.
“Assessor. Here’s the medical report on Park Jongsu’s Stage Two enforcement.”
Taekyung accepted the documents. Hyunwoo stopped as he was about to leave.
“I heard the next case is dating violence.”
“Yes.”
“Does it include an assessment of psychological harm?”
“Yes.”
Hyunwoo was silent for a moment.
“Let me know when the enforcement method has been determined. Physically recreating psychological harm is outside my jurisdiction.”
Taekyung looked at Hyunwoo.
“If it’s outside your jurisdiction, whose is it?”
Hyunwoo didn’t answer. He closed the door and left.
Taekyung looked at the record again.
The final line of Kang Yujin’s statement.
“Will I get better if he’s punished?”
Taekyung couldn’t answer that question. A harm assessor’s job was to turn harm into numbers, not determine whether the victim would recover.
And yet he couldn’t erase the question from his mind.
The next day.
Taekyung summoned three psychiatric advisory committee members.
The Equivalence Authority’s seventh-floor conference room. The advisors took their seats. Taekyung distributed Kang Yujin’s records.
“I’d like your advice on a method of equivalent enforcement for psychological harm.”
One of the advisors looked up from the records.
“Assessor, I’ll be frank. Physically recreating psychological harm is medically impossible.”
“Does ‘impossible’ mean there’s no method, or that it would be unethical?”
“Both.”
Taekyung nodded.
“Then let me rephrase the question. Can psychological harm be converted into physical harm?”
The conference room fell silent.
“If we convert the limitations on daily life caused by panic disorder into a physical-disability grade, what grade would it be? If we calculate the reduction in work capacity caused by sleep disorder as a percentage, what would it be? If we convert the loss of social functioning caused by social phobia into an economic loss, what would the figure be?”
The advisors looked at one another.
Taekyung spoke.
“If psychological harm can’t be returned psychologically, then we have to measure the destruction it has caused in the victim’s life and return it in another form. That’s my job.”
The meeting lasted four hours. No conclusion was reached. The advisors maintained that “converting psychological harm into physical harm lacks sufficient medical basis.” Taekyung said, “If the basis is insufficient, then we have to create one.” One of the advisors looked at him. “Assessor, that’s policy, not medicine.” Taekyung didn’t answer. Policy or medicine, he had to create something to return to Kang Yujin.
That evening.
Taekyung was in his office drafting the harm-assessment report.
“Standards for the Equivalent Assessment of Psychological Harm (Draft)”
1. Convert the degree to which psychological harm limits daily life according to the physical-disability grading system. 2. Impose on the offender a physical limitation corresponding to the converted grade. 3. Calculate the period of imposition to match the victim’s expected recovery period. If the condition is determined to be irreversible, impose it permanently.
Taekyung stopped his pen.
Was this right?
Convert Kang Yujin’s panic disorder into a Grade 3 physical disability and impose a physical limitation corresponding to Grade 3 on Lee Dohyun. For example, restrict the function of one arm. Just as Kang Yujin couldn’t live her daily life because of panic, Lee Dohyun would have to live without one arm.
But would that be the same harm?
Kang Yujin’s arms worked perfectly, yet she couldn’t go outside. Lee Dohyun could go outside, but he had no arm. The forms were different. Could harms in different forms be equivalent?
Taekyung closed the draft report.
He looked out the window. The lights of Yeouido were visible. Beneath those lights, Kang Yujin would be awake alone in her studio apartment. Unable even to go to a convenience store by herself.
Taekyung opened the report again.
Even without an answer, he had to create a number. Without a number, there could be no punishment. Without punishment, there would be nothing to return to Kang Yujin.
He pressed beneath his right eye.
Then he picked up his pen again.
End of Episode 5.