Police Apply Regional Restriction System to All Inspection Officers to Exclude Local Natives

The National Police Agency is placing officials who are not from the respective regions into all positions of Audit and Inspection Human Rights Officers at provincial and municipal police agencies.

The National Police Agency held its second meeting of the Task Force on Follow-up Measures for the Revised Criminal Procedure Act today (August 12) and discussed these measures.

The police decided to assign individuals not native to the local region to all Audit and Inspection Human Rights Officer positions across provincial and municipal police agencies in line with the regular police personnel reshuffle for the second half of the year.

This is intended to virtually apply a regional restriction system to block any possibility that ties with local police organizations might influence audits and inspections.

Investigative personnel will also be reinforced.

The police decided to deploy additional personnel to investigative departments, on top of the 881 personnel previously discussed.

Based on the judgment that reinforcing personnel is urgent before the implementation of the revised Criminal Procedure Act on October 2, the police plan to internally adjust personnel from areas unaffected by public safety issues and deploy them to investigative departments first.

The police are pursuing a plan to reduce the staffing of 130 riot police units by about 10 percent and reallocate the secured personnel to investigative, public safety, and internal control fields.

A total of 1,040 personnel will be reallocated, including 645 for integrated investigation teams and 80 for women and youth investigations.

However, following the earlier decision to reallocate 881 personnel to investigative departments and the execution of additional reinforcements, internal grievances regarding staff shortages and work burdens are expected to grow.

The police plan to continue discussions on increasing investigative personnel through new recruitment in consultation with relevant ministries afterwards.

They also decided to conduct training related to the revised Criminal Procedure Act for those working in investigative departments, including the newly deployed personnel.

Management of cases involving prosecutors' requests for supplementary investigations following the implementation of the revised Criminal Procedure Act will also be strengthened.

Dedicated departments responsible for the execution, inspection, and management of cases requested by prosecutors will be operated at the National Police Agency and provincial and municipal police agencies.

These dedicated departments are scheduled to operate in conjunction with the second-half police personnel reshuffle following consultations with relevant ministries.

A 40-member Internal Corruption Investigation Unit will be newly established directly under the head of the National Investigation Headquarters, and personnel will be reinforced in the Investigation Review Division, which checks the completeness of case processing.

The National Police Agency stated, "Along with operating dedicated departments, we plan to announce measures to strengthen the management of cases requested by prosecutors under the revised Criminal Procedure Act at a later date."

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.