17,000 officers tied to single station as 'hometown policing' scandal drives rotation push

The problem of police officers developing local ties — known as "hyangchal," or hometown policing — has come under intense scrutiny. The issue has escalated into allegations that police systematically tried to suppress the investigation into Jang Yun-gi, the son of a serving police officer, who killed a high school student. An officer at the Gwangju Gwangsan Police Station, identified as having tried to conceal evidence of Jang's sex crimes, had a working relationship with Jang's father, Inspector Jang. The inspector served at Gwangsan Station for more than 10 years until early last year.

According to data submitted to the office of Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Hae-sik, as of this month 17,130 working-level officers at the rank of inspector or below had served at the same police station for more than 10 years nationwide. Inspectors — the backbone of the organization — accounted for 5,209 of that total, senior officers 8,697 and sergeants 3,211. The Gwangsan Station investigator suspected of leaking confidential information to Jang's father held the rank of sergeant.

Long-term postings were more pronounced outside Seoul. In the capital, officers at inspector rank or below who had spent more than 10 years at a single station accounted for about 8 percent of the total. By contrast, in the North Jeolla, North Chungcheong, South Chungcheong, North Gyeongsang and South Gyeongsang provincial police agencies, roughly one in four or five working-level officers had been at the same post for more than a decade.

The government and ruling party are pushing to expand a rotation system to prevent officers from building entrenched local ties. Under current practice, officers at superintendent rank or above rotate every year, and inspectors every two years. The plan would extend mandatory rotation to those at inspector rank and below.

Lee Hae-sik, the Democratic Party's floor coordinator on the National Assembly's Interior and Safety Committee, said Wednesday, immediately after a government-ruling party meeting, that "the root cause of the Jang Yun-gi case is local entanglement" and that "there was a report saying the rotation system must be firmly established to sever those ties."

Lee said the officer who leaked confidential information to Jang's father held the rank of sergeant, adding that "lawmakers raised the issue that even sergeants handle investigations directly, so rotation must apply to them as well."

However, police told the government and ruling party that applying rotation to officers at senior officer rank or below would be difficult in practice. Police also reported a set of reform measures, including establishing an internal corruption investigation unit directly under the National Investigation Headquarters chief, introducing a multi-officer system for investigative cases, and setting up an investigation and human rights inspection body within the National Police Commission.

Police have formed a task force on enhancing public trust in police investigations and plan to gather field opinions and consult outside experts before introducing a rotation system. The TF, chaired by attorney Kim Nam-jun of the Citizen Law Firm, holds its first meeting Monday, with the rotation system among the items on the agenda. Kim previously served as chair of the Ministry of Justice's prosecution reform committee.

Earlier, Interior and Safety Minister Yun Ho-jung issued a public apology on July 16 over allegations that police suppressed the Jang Yun-gi case, pledging to "fully introduce a rotation system to root out the problem of officers becoming entrenched in their home regions, and fundamentally block the practice of shielding colleagues by requiring officers to voluntarily report and recuse themselves from cases involving their relatives."

Inside the police force, however, resistance to the government's rotation policy is strong. One senior police official said that "strategically deploying talented officers, rather than rotating them at random, is what raises capability and enables rapid change," arguing that rotation cannot be a fundamental solution. The National Police Officers' Association has called for scrapping the rotation system for officers at inspector rank and below and has announced a joint council meeting for Wednesday, July 29.