Tag: crime

Crime may be dropping in Seoul, but the perception apparentlhy is that crime is a growing problem to be concerned about:

The number of crimes in Seoul has been declining, however, anxiety about the issue among residents is increasing, particularly among women and older adults, according to a report released by the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family, Sunday.

The foundation published the report based on data provided by Statistics Korea, which interviewed 3,007 Seoulites aged 20 and older in 2022.

According to the report, the number of crimes in the city declined from 296,178 in 2020 to 279,507 in 2022. The five major violent crimes — murder, robbery, theft, assault and sexual violence — also decreased from 92,679 to 90,339 during that period.

Despite this decline, residents’ sense of safety has not improved. On a scale from 1 (very safe) to 5 (very unsafe), the average score increased slightly from 3.13 in 2020 to 3.17 in 2022, indicating a growing perception of insecurity.

The report highlighted that women feel more anxious than men about potential crimes in their daily lives. On a scale from 1 (feeling very safe) to 10 (feeling very anxious), women scored 6.38 compared to men’s 5.4.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I think the media highlighting major crimes is probably what feeds into the public’s anxiety.

Somebody must have said something for the Thai police to have found a body in a barrel filled with concrete in a reservoir:

Thailand plans to request South Korea hand over a suspect in the murder of a South Korean tourist and disposal of the body in Pattaya, a local media report said Wednesday. 

Thai authorities are seeking the extradition of one of the three suspects, who was arrested in a provincial county in South Korea on Monday, the Khaosod daily reported quoting a local police official. 

Thai police are investigating the brutal murder case, in which the body of the 34-year-old victim was found in a plastic container filled with cement in a reservoir in Pattaya.

A Bangkok court has also issued arrest warrants for the three suspects on charges of abduction and murder, the news outlet said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

If you are accused of a crime I can understand having protections to your identity. Sometimes people get falsely accused of things and spreading their information online causes them irreparable harm. However, once convicted of a crime there shouldn’t be issues with posting information about the criminal:

Concerns surrounding the disclosure of the personal information of convicted criminals and those suspected of having committed crimes have been mounting in South Korea, sparked by the recent revival of a name-and-shame website known as “Digital Prison,” around four years after it was shut down by South Korean authorities.

The debate was triggered by the unauthorized release of the personal details of a 25-year-old man surnamed Choi, who is accused of stabbing his girlfriend to death on top of a building in the densely populated Gangnam district of Seoul on May 6 at around 5 p.m. Local reports suggested that Choi has admitted to planning the crime.

Choi’s personal information, including his full name, photos, university entrance exam scores, the medical school he was accepted into and social media accounts, rapidly spread across the internet, with Digital Prison pinpointed as the originating platform.

Following the release of Choi’s personal information on Wednesday, Digital Prison published more posts containing the information of several other criminals and those suspected of having committed crimes. These include the personal information of a YouTuber in his 50s who allegedly stabbed a fellow YouTuber near the Busan District Court on Thursday morning on live stream.

Korea Herald

If Korea’ Democratic Party has their way, they want President Yoon’s wife to be in jail with her mother:

The Justice Ministry on Tuesday blocked the early release of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s mother-in-law, who has been serving a one-year prison term for forgery, in its latest round of monthly parole reviews, according to officials close to the matter.

Though Choi Eui-soon, the 77-year-old mother of first lady Kim Keon Hee, was excluded from the latest list of inmates to be released early, she will be reconsidered for next month’s review, under the current law.

Following an hours-long monthly review, the ministry’s Probation and Parole Board decided to “hold off” Choi’s parole, rather than “disallowing” it like they did in February. This allows Choi to be included among the list of inmates eligible for parole review next month, while the previous decision in February had led to her exclusion from the subsequent month’s review held in March.

The ministry has yet to release an official statement on its latest decision.

Choi has been incarcerated at the Dongbu Detention Center in Songpa-gu, southern Seoul since July last year, after an appellate court confirmed her one-year prison sentence for falsifying her bank balance certificate to make it appear as though she had deposited 34.9 billion won ($25.4 million) in the account for a land purchase deal, as well as for purchasing property using other people’s names.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

How would you like to be the commander who got the phone call to come pick up Satan from jail after this crazy incident:

A U.S. Navy sailor accused of slamming into a group of Japanese people in a beach town near Yokosuka Naval Base identified himself afterward as Satan, a Japanese police officer testified Thursday. Petty Officer 2nd Class Daniel Krieger, a logistics specialist assigned to the guided-missile destroyer USS Milius, is charged with four counts of bodily injury.

He pleaded not guilty during his March 8 arraignment at Yokohama District Court’s Yokosuka Branch. Krieger’s attorneys don’t dispute the facts of the July 9, 2022, incident in Zushi, a beach town on Sagami Bay, said Masahiko Goto, who represents the injured parties in a separate civil suit against the sailor. Krieger’s criminal defense lawyers argue the sailor cannot bear responsibility because he was drunk at the time and suffers from a preexisting brain injury, said Goto, whose clients are demanding damages of about $136,000.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This shows how much times have changed in Korea. Years ago people would not have intervened in fear of getting sued by the assaulter:

A South Korean man who sustained serious injuries while trying to stop an assault of a woman will be designated as a “wounded noble person” by the law and receive state compensation, the city government of Jinju said Monday.

The city government recently granted a model citizen certificate to the man in his 50s, and is preparing for the abovementioned official designation. The Act on Honorable Treatment and Support for Persons Who Died or Were Injured for Public Good stipulates benefits for those who died or were injured while making rescue efforts without any official duty to do so.

One meeting such criteria is defined as a “deceased or wounded noble person” by the act, and can receive compensation, benefits when getting jobs, and can even be buried in the National Cemetery in cases of particularly valuable contributions.

“He sacrificed himself while trying to rescue a citizen, so we (Jinju city) decided that we should help him… In addition to the designation, we will arrange for him to get a new job and help him in other affairs as well,” the city said.

Last November, a 20-something man started attacking a female store convenience store clerk also in her 20s in Hadae-dong, Jinju. The attacker told the victim that he suspected her to be a feminist, based on her short hair, and said “feminists should be beaten up.”

The victim sustained serious injuries, including permanent impairment of her hearing.

The 50-something man was at the site and tried to stop the attacker, but he too sustained serious injuries to his face and shoulder. He had to quit his job due to the trauma from the incident, and has been suffering from financial hardship since then.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It has been quiet on the GI crime front until this past weekend:

A United States Forces Korea (USFK) service member was arrested after causing an accident while driving under the influence with a stolen vehicle, police said Monday. 
  
According to the Goyang Police Precinct, a USFK soldier in their 20s deployed at a base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi, stole a car in Mapo District, western Seoul, between Saturday night and early Sunday. 
  
The soldier drove the stolen car and hit two vehicles, including a truck, while they were waiting for the traffic light to change at 6:17 a.m. Sunday.

Police apprehended the soldier after the crash. 
  
Two people were injured in the accident, according to the police. 
  
The soldier was found to have stolen a parked car, in which the owner left their keys, after drinking alcohol in the Hongdae area.

Joong Ang Ilbo via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

With how small cameras are getting today this guy wasn’t trying very hard to hide his spy cameras with something this obvious:

This photo shows a spy camera found at an early voting polling station in Yangsan, 301 kilometers southeast of Seoul, provided by the South Gyeongsang Province police authority on March 29, 2024.

Police said Saturday they have requested an arrest warrant for a YouTuber suspected of installing spy cameras at some 40 early voting stations ahead of the April 10 parliamentary elections.

Officials at Incheon Nonhyeon Police Station said the suspect, a man in his 40s, allegedly placed hidden cameras at about 40 early polling stations in major cities, including Seoul, Busan, Incheon, Ulsan and Daegu.

The interior ministry earlier said spy cameras had been found at 26 early voting stations as of Friday.

The suspect reportedly told the police that he wanted to monitor the National Election Commission’s manipulation of turnout rates for early voting.

The man is also under suspicion of having installed hidden cameras in polling stations during the 2022 presidential election and the by-election for the mayorship of Gangseo District in Seoul in October, according to officials.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This Sergeant Major in Korea faced a real nightmare upon trying to retire:

Retired Sgt. Major Eriq Brown first learned of his criminal record in 2021 during a screening for veteran disability benefits as part of his retirement from the Army. He met with a civilian psychologist in South Korea as part of a post-traumatic stress disorder screening. The psychologist asked him whether his pending criminal charge was causing him emotional distress. Brown, who spent 28 years doing human resources work in the Army, said he looked at the doctor perplexed.

Two years prior, a fellow soldier in Korea accused him of assault. She told military police that Brown in a period of three months had hit her on the back of the neck, bumped her in an on-post store at Camp Humphreys and then grabbed her arm after an event. No charges came of the accusations, according to Brown’s service record and documentation that he would later present to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records.

An officer in Brown’s chain of command with 8th Army conducted an internal investigation and found no evidence it happened — even discovering Brown wasn’t on post the day that he supposedly bumped the woman at a store, according to correction board documents. He was never arrested or detained or read his rights. There was no court-martial or nonjudicial punishment. Instead, Brown received a reprimand in his personnel file for unprofessional behavior. The letter scolded Brown for touching the woman’s neck and then reaching for her arm after she had told him that she did not want to be touched.

“You have exhibited poor judgment,” Brig. Gen. Patrick Donahoe wrote in the reprimand dated Aug. 21, 2019. Nowhere in the letter does he write Brown was arrested or committed a crime. Sitting in that doctor’s office, Brown realized none of this was behind him. The ordeal had left him with a criminal arrest listed on his background check with no resolution — as if he is still waiting to face judgment for a misdemeanor assault charge. “Think about the embarrassment of that,” said Brown, now 47. “I definitely wouldn’t let my children go in the military after this.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read much more at the link, but what is going on is that Soldiers accused of crimes are entered into an FBI data base. Later when it is found that no crime occurred their alleged crime is still showing in the FBI database as if it did occur and it is very difficult to get it removed.

Of course this is not something done in the civilian sector, but in the military this policy was enacted as an over correction from a mass shooting committed by an Air Force veteran in 2007. That veteran had a domestic violence conviction during his time in the Air Force that was not entered into the FBI database which allowed him to buy a gun. Why doesn’t the military just enter people into the database that are actually convicted of a crime?

I prefer societies that hold people accountable for crimes even if its stealing about $3 of coffee:

And now we have the case of a 59-year-old man who was caught nipping a little extra coffee with his order and was detained by police for it. His cover was blown last December when he popped into a convenience store during his lunch break and ordered a Regular Coffee for 110 yen. However, while at the machine, a little devil on his shoulder convinced him to press the button for a Large Coffee valued at 180 yen which filled his Regular cup to the brim.

He then left the store but just as he was about to get into his car, the clerk called out to him and reported him to the police. While waiting for the authorities, the clerk interrogated the man and found that he had done this twice before at that store.

The man was then questioned by the police but no charges were pressed and the man was released. However, since he was the principal of a nearby junior high school, word of the incident got back to the Hyogo Prefectural Board of Education who questioned the man once again.

This time he admitted to having misappropriated coffee a total of seven times since June of last year for an approximate total of 490 yen worth of ill-gotten coffee. He explained that the first time he did it, it was an accident, but when he discovered that a Large Coffee fit into his Regular Coffee cup and the staff didn’t say anything, he decided to do it again, even knowing it was wrong.

As a result, on January 30, the Board of Education handed down a disciplinary dismissal for “gross misconduct unbecoming of an educational public servant.” They also apologized “from the bottom of [their] hearts” for allowing this to happen.

Japan Today

You can read more at the link, but 490 yen equal about $3.30 USD.

I think the Japanese response to crime is better than in the U.S. where for example drugs are decriminalized in Oregon or shoplifters can get away with stealing $950 or less of items in California. This is all madness that increases crimes. You don’t see this madness in Japan and other societies that are tough on crime because they hold people accountable for even small criminal offenses such as stealing about $3 of coffee.