South Korea KOREAN NATIONAL POLICE
Figure 18. Organization of the National Police, 1989
Source: Based on information from Republic of Korea, National
Police Headquarters, Korean National Police, Seoul, 1989.
Police box
Courtesy Korean National Police
Emergency training, Korean National Police
Courtesy Korean National Police
Organized by the United States Army Military Government in
1945, the Korean National Police (KNP) force was formally
activated in 1948 by the new Korean government and placed under
the Ministry of Home Affairs. Even after the establishment of a
separate military service in 1948, the police force retained a
paramilitary role and was employed in military operations during
the Korean War.
Attacked in its early years as a remnant of Japanese colonial
rule (1910-45), beset by low professionalism, factionalism,
endemic corruption, and political manipulation, the Korean
National Police nonetheless still evolved into a relatively
modern and effective force. Although the police force was used by
the Rhee regime in such a flagrantly political way that it was
held in low esteem by the citizenry, reforms made after the 1961
military coup began the police force's slow evolution into a
professional force. Reorganization, recruitment by examination,
merit promotion, and modern concepts of management and training
were instituted. Further improvements came during the 1970s when
modern communication, data processing, and crime detection
practices were introduced.
In 1975 the director general of the KNP was elevated to vice-
ministerial rank directly under the minister of home affairs. The
KNP reported through its own channels to its headquarters in
Seoul. Provincial governors and local officials had no authority
over the police.
In addition to the regular police functions of law
enforcement, criminal investigation, and public safety, the KNP
was responsible for riot control, countering student
demonstrations, and other public disorders. Coastal security,
including patrolling coastal waters, antismuggling operations,
and coordinating counterespionage operations with the navy and
the air force, were also its purview. "Combat operations" against
small-scale North Korean infiltration attempts; the monitoring of
foreign residents in South Korea; anticommunist operations,
including counterintelligence activities and monitoring of
"security risks" (historically expanded to including monitoring
political, labor, economic, academic, religious, and cultural
figures); and counterterrorist operations were all part of the
mission of the KNP. There sometimes was competitive overlap
between the KNP, ANSP, and the DSC.
In 1989 the KNP was a 130,000-person organization that
consisted of a headquarters, thirteen metropolitan/provincial
police bureaus, the Combat Police, the National Maritime Police,
an antiterrorist unit, the Central Police Academy, and other
support services, such as a forensics laboratory, a hospital, and
other police schools. As of January 1989, there were 201 police
stations and 3,220 police substations and detachments throughout
the country.
The National Police Headquarters exercised authority over all
police components. Metropolitan and provincial police bureaus
were responsible for maintaining public order by directing and
supervising their own police stations
(see
fig. 18).
The police station was responsible for maintaining public
peace within its own precinct. The police station had seven
functioning sections: an administration and public safety
section, responsibile for operation and supervision of police
substations and boxes, litigation of minor offenses, traffic
control, and crime prevention; a security section, responsible
for maintaining public order; an investigation section for
investigating criminal incidents, lawsuits, booking criminals,
custody of suspects, detention-cell management, and transference
of cases and suspects involved in criminal cases to prosecution
authorities; a criminal section responsibile for crime
prevention; a counterespionage section; and an intelligence
section, responsible for collection of intelligence and
information. The police substation or police box took preliminary
actions in all criminal incidents, civic services, and accidents.
Police boxes were the South Korean equivalent of the cop on
the beat. They provided direct contact between the people and the
police. Police box personnel were supposed to know their areas
and the people who lived and worked in them. Police boxes were
commanded by lieutenants or sergeants and had reaction vehicles
available on a twenty-four-hour basis.
Weighed down by a wide range of administrative duties, KNP
personnel spent only 15 percent of their time on routine
enforcement duties in 1989. Among other things, the KNP collected
fines, approved death certificates, and processed security checks
for passport applicants. The personnel shortage was acute;
official statistics showed that there was only one police officer
(excluding the Combat Police, who accounted for nearly half the
strength of the KNP) for every 680 South Koreans, as compared
with one police officer for every 390 people in the United
States, one for every 318 people in West Germany, and one for
every 551 people in Japan (the lowest ratio for any major
industrialized noncommunist country). This shortage was
compounded by a tight budget and the continued preoccupation with
riot control, which left the force ill equipped to deal with the
demands of an increasingly affluent and sophisticated society.
Recruitment and training were done through the Central Police
Academy, the National Police College, and the Police Consolidated
Training School. The Central Police Academy was established in
1987. It had a maximum capacity of 35,000 recruits and was
capable of simultaneously offering a six-week training course for
police recruits, a two-week training course for draftees of the
Combat Police, and a variety of basic specialized training
courses for junior police. Officials planned to recruit about
10,000 new police officers a year from 1989 to 1991 to alleviate
the personnel shortage, although their ability to maintain the
quality of the force, given the low starting pay, was questioned.
Only 12 percent of police applicants were university graduates in
1989. Screening unsuitable recruits was problematic because
neither psychiatric nor polygraph assessments were administered.
(In 1982, for example, an unstable police officer killed fifty-
four people in one night following a domestic dispute.)
By 1989 the National Police College had graduated some 500
officers since its first class graduated in 1985. Each college
class had about 120 police cadets, divided between law and public
administration specializations. The National Police College began
admitting women in 1989; five women were admitted each year. The
cadets shared a collective life for four years at the college.
The goal was to establish a career officers corps similar to
those created by the military academies.
The Police Consolidated Training School provided advanced
studies, basic training for junior police staff, and special
practical training courses for security and investigative
officers from the counterespionage echelons of police agencies.
It also trained Maritime Police instructors, key command
personnel for the Combat Police force, and foreign-language staff
members.
Revolvers and carbines were the customary weapons; billy
clubs were carried by patrol officers. The gradual replacement of
carbines by rifles began in 1981. In 1989 the KNP reemphasized
the planned replacement of carbines with M-16 rifles.
Approximately 4,300 M-16s were to be supplied to police boxes and
stations in 1989; by 1999 a total of 110,000 M-16s were scheduled
to be distributed. Transportation was by motorcycle, bicycle,
jeep, truck, and squad car.
The KNP's special weapons and tactics squad was known as
Force 868. Organized in 1982, its members were trained in martial
arts and counterterrorist tactics. It received significant
support and advice from United States and West European
counterterrorist task forces preceding the 1988 Seoul Olympics
and was well supplied with the more specialized equipment needed
for combating terrorism.
The Combat Police force was technically subordinate to the
Ministry of National Defense, but the Ministry of Home Affairs
and the Korean National Police were responsible for its
operational management and budget. During hostilities, the Combat
Police reverted to the Ministry of National Defense. The members
of the Combat Police were conscripted at age twenty or older and
served for approximately two-and-a-half years. Divided into
companies, the Combat Police force was assigned to the
metropolitan police bureaus. Except for supervisory personnel who
were regular KNP officers, the Combat Police were paramilitary;
their primary responsibilities were riot control and
counterinfiltration. Under normal conditions, they did not have
law enforcement powers as did regular KNP officers. In 1967 the
Combat Police force was organized to handle counterinfiltration
and antiriot duties.
Approximately half of the total strength of the KNP was
formed into 350 Combat Police/riot control companies. The
percentage of Combat Police in the total force increased during
the 1980s. In 1982 there were 39,706 Combat Police, about 40
percent of the police total. By 1987 Combat Police represented
45.8 percent of the total force with 54,100 members. Since
service in the Combat Police was regarded as fulfilling a
military obligation, young men who did not wish to serve the
compulsory minimum thirty-month service in the military could opt
for a thirty-five-month stint with the Korean National Police as
combat police. Draftees into military service also could be
assigned to the Combat Police force after completion of basic
training.
While the police were relatively well trained and
disciplined, illegal police behavior in the conduct of
investigations or handling of suspects was occasionally a serious
problem. In 1985, for example, as a result of some form of
official misconduct, one-fourth of Seoul's detectives were
transferred, demoted, or otherwise disciplined. Rough treatment
of suspects before a warrant was obtained was a continuing
problem. Redress in cases of official misconduct normally was
handled internally and rarely resulted in criminal charges
against police officials.
Historically, the use of excessive force by the police was
pervasive. In violent confrontations with student demonstrators,
police units generally remained well disciplined, but rioters
were beaten on apprehension, often by plainclothes police.
Charges of police beatings in nonpolitical cases were made fairly
frequently and sometimes were reported in the press.
Antigovernment youth activists were subjected to repeated and
severe physical torture, at times resulting in death during
interrogations. Various degrees of physical maltreatment,
including sleep and food deprivation, electric shocks, beating,
and forced water intake were common during police interrogations
under the Rhee, Park, and Chun regimes. With the founding of the
Sixth Republic, such reports declined. However, according to the
United States Department of State's reports on human rights, some
credible allegations of torture were made during the last half of
1989 by persons arrested under the National Security Act.
Credible allegations of cruel treatment also continued in 1990.
Although political cases received the most publicity,
mistreatment of people detained or arrested for nonpolitical
crimes is alleged to be widespread.
Data as of June 1990
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