The 'Burying' of Victimless Crimes Is a Bigger Problem

In connection with the case of the police falsely closing the disappearance of Jang Mi-ran on Jeju Island, the word "amjang" (secret burial) is being widely discussed. "Amjang" means secretly burying something. It refers to closing a case without further investigation despite clear suspicions or allegations of a crime. While it was once a concept used primarily among criminal justice practitioners, it has now become a term familiar to the entire nation in the wake of the Jang Mi-ran case.
  The police's false closure of the Jang Mi-ran case has no direct connection to the prosecutor's authority to conduct supplementary investigations. This is because a prosecutor's supplementary investigation is only possible in cases where the police recognize criminal suspicion and forward the case. In the Jang Mi-ran case, the police initially determined it was not a crime and falsely closed it, meaning it was never opened as a formal criminal case in the first place. There was no room for a prosecutor's supplementary investigation to intervene. Nor is it related to the prosecutor's investigative command authority, which was abolished in 2021, because investigative command also applied only to formal criminal cases.

Nevertheless, many people link the Jang Mi-ran case to the "abolition of supplementary investigations" or the "abolition of investigative command." This is due to mistrust. People are anxious about what will happen if a police organization that handles a matter directly involving human life in this manner is freed from the oversight mechanism of supplementary investigations. Concerns are also growing that cases are particularly likely to be "buried" when the victims belong to socially vulnerable groups.
  However, there are cases where the likelihood of being buried is even higher than when victims are socially vulnerable. These are cases where victims do not virtually exist. More precisely, they are cases where the victim is the state or society itself. Criminal cases such as violations of the Political Funds Act, violations of the Public Official Election Act, bribery, and espionage fall into this category. Why is this so?

Let us first examine why cases involving socially vulnerable victims are more likely to be buried. Until now, prosecutors, who are legal experts employed by the state, acted on behalf of victims during the investigation process to handle duties requiring legal expertise. Starting this coming October, prosecutors will be "separated" from investigations. However, this does not mean the victims' need for legal expertise will disappear. Victims will have to hire and respond through their own legal counsel to make up for the void left by prosecutors, even if only slightly. (Of course, doing so still cannot completely fill the void left by prosecutors.)


This means the outcome of an investigation is increasingly likely to depend on the victim's "ability to respond." The socially vulnerable are precisely those with weak "ability to respond." They are more likely to be unable to retain competent lawyers, and in some instances, such as with children or people with developmental disabilities, they may lack the ability to express their intentions during the investigation process. As their "ability to respond" drops, the likelihood of their cases being "buried" rises.

Yet, from the perspective of "ability to respond," cases with no individual victims at all pose a far greater problem. Strictly speaking, these are cases where the victim is unspecified because the victim is the state or society. In cases involving socially vulnerable victims, there is at least an identifiable victim with some ability to respond; the victim's side can even report the matter to the press. In cases involving political fund violations or bribery, however, such actions are impossible because the victim is the state or society. Prosecutors are the very legal experts representing the state or society, but they will no longer be able to directly participate in the investigative process. With no individual victims to respond, the likelihood of such cases being buried becomes even greater.
  There are those who would welcome this situation: people who commit crimes that harm the state or society, such as violations of the Political Funds Act, election law violations, and bribery. Who are they? The first who come to mind are corrupt politicians. However, not only politicians but anyone exercising public authority, whether large or small, has the potential for corruption. This includes heads of local governments with licensing and permit authority, tax office staff in charge of tax audits, and public officials across various agencies handling civil complaints. When investigations begin, these individuals will hire lawyers to mount a defense. The state or society harmed by them cannot do so. In effect, a favorable world has opened up for corrupt public officials.

What is even more alarming is that it takes a long time for the resulting harm to become apparent. It is similar to environmental pollution. Imagine that a law penalizing the discharge of wastewater into rivers were abolished. Factories would discharge wastewater into rivers, but problems would not immediately surface. While the river water might turn dark or emit a foul odor, no single individual's personal interests would be directly violated right away.

However, after five to ten years of such discharges, the situation changes. People begin to fall ill, and some may even lose their lives. Even when it reaches that point, it will take more years to reach the conclusion that the root cause of the problem was the "abolition of the law prohibiting wastewater discharge." Even if crackdowns on wastewater discharge eventually resume, it will take far longer for the river to become clean again. It may even never recover.
  The same applies to the burying of cases where the victim is unspecified. Even if cases such as bribery or espionage fail to be properly investigated and start being buried, the damage does not immediately show. This is because no specific individual suffers direct personal harm. In fact, because fewer people are punished for offenses like bribery, statistical integrity indices might ironically appear to rise.

Over time, however, corruption will become rampant, and once a point is reached where public business cannot be conducted without informal influence or bribes, people will finally begin to realize that something has gone wrong. Even then, it will take more time to conclude that the cause of the problem was a flawed "prosecution reform." Restoring or improving the system will take even longer—provided that restoration or improvement is still possible.


Concerns over the burying of cases involving socially vulnerable individuals are valid. However, what is truly likely to be buried without anyone ever noticing are crimes committed against the state and society by those holding public authority. Such "burying" will not even be visible for the time being. Only after considerable time passes and a critical tipping point is crossed will the severity finally be felt. One can only hope that this can be reversed before it becomes too late.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.