Police face scrutiny over investigative capacity at first audit since prosecution abolished

Police came under fire over their investigative capacity at the first National Assembly audit of the Korean National Police Agency since the abolition of the prosecution's investigative powers, which transferred full responsibility for criminal investigations to police.

At the audit held Monday at the agency's headquarters in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, Acting Commissioner Kim Jong-cheol said the expanded investigative authority would be treated not as an enlargement of power but as a heavier responsibility. "We will ensure that no member of the public suffers harm from gaps in the system," he said. The audit was conducted by the National Assembly's Interior and Safety Committee.

Addressing concerns that the workload transferred from the abolished prosecution could lead to shoddy investigations, Kim said 1,954 cases that prosecutors had suspended from indictment had already been handed over to police, with discussions ongoing over the remaining unsolved cases. "In preparation, we have recruited more than 4,000 new investigative personnel this year alone," he said.

People Power Party Deputy Speaker Park Deok-heum said that over the past three years, the most common reason citizens filed recusal requests against investigators was "insufficient investigation," adding that this reflected a lack of public trust in police work. "Isn't this happening because investigators are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cases?" he said. He also warned that the transfer of roughly 160,000 unsolved cases from the prosecution to police risked creating a serious overload.

Park also raised concerns about the high proportion of junior investigators. "Even at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, which handles the most cases, investigators with three years' experience or less account for 35 percent of the total," he said. "Simply adding more personnel does not automatically improve the quality of investigations."

Concerns were also raised about plans to redeploy riot police personnel to investigative units. Democratic Party lawmaker Yang Bu-nam said pulling people from riot units would leave a gap in the work those units currently perform. "Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not a proper solution," he said.

When Yang asked whether Kim had ever conducted investigations himself, Kim replied that he had done so for about three years. Kim added that personnel from riot units and other divisions unrelated to public safety had been redeployed to investigative departments, and that training to strengthen their expertise was already underway — not merely a headcount increase.

Democratic Party lawmaker Park Jeong-hyeon noted that police had received the lowest possible rating — grade 5 — in a public institution integrity assessment, and criticized the agency for continuing to respond tepidly to corruption issues, including alleged collusion with local power brokers, despite having been called out on the same problems at last year's audit.

Internal misconduct is expected to come under scrutiny again at the audit of the Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency later the same day. It recently emerged that two active-duty senior police officers are under investigation on charges of leaking investigative secrets while serving as section chiefs at a police station under the Gyeonggi Southern agency last year. The two are the first targets of a special unit the agency launched last month to handle internal misconduct cases.

Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Sang-sik, a former police officer, said that as President Lee Jae Myung had noted, police had become the state institution with the greatest authority and responsibility. "If police fail to earn the public's trust, they may one day face the same calls for reform that brought down the prosecution," he said.

Lawmakers also criticized the 22-month vacancy in the police commissioner post. People Power Party lawmaker Kang Myeong-gu, who leads his party's side on the Interior and Safety Committee, said the audit was being conducted under an acting commissioner for the second consecutive year. "This is not how a normal state organization should operate — it is an unprecedented situation in history," he said. He called on the committee to seek official explanations from Cheong Wa Dae, the prime minister's office and the Ministry of Interior and Safety over why no commissioner had been appointed.

Kim said he did not believe the vacancy had created any particular problems in handling current affairs, but pledged to prepare thoroughly so that the public would have no cause for concern.

Police said they are operating on an emergency footing until the revised Code of Criminal Procedure takes full effect, with measures including setting up investigative legal consultation and support TFs at each provincial and metropolitan police agency, providing all investigators with training on the new code, centering investigations on team-leader-level officers, and expanding promotions and commendations for investigative units. To prevent misconduct in investigative duties, police have also introduced a recusal system for cases involving officers' family members, a blanket ban on case-related inquiries, and tougher disciplinary measures that remove officers from investigative duties.