Whenever a case that sparks public outrage erupts, such as the disappearance of Jang Mi-ran in Jeju, the police leadership’s go-to countermeasure is a “full investigation.” However, frontline officers criticize these measures as superficial and detached from reality. They argue that instead of pursuing fundamental solutions like increasing manpower or securing budgets, the leadership resorts to temporary fixes such as “improving procedures” or “strengthening supervision.”
The police have repeatedly proposed full investigations as a countermeasure whenever relationship-based crimes like stalking or dating murders occur. In September 2022, after a stalking murder at Seoul’s Sindang Station subway, the National Police Agency announced, “We will conduct a full investigation into all 7,284 stalking cases reported nationwide over the past month.” The same approach was taken in May–July 2025, when dating murders occurred in Hwaseong Dongtan, Daegu, and Daejeon. In August that year, the police released a statement saying, “We have analyzed 70 cases of violence against female victims among murder cases from January to July to establish improvement tasks.” In March of this year, a stalking murder occurred in Namyangju, Gyeonggi. The police then stated, “We will conduct a full investigation into 22,388 relationship-based crimes that have been criminally charged.”
Following the recent disappearance of Jang Mi-ran in Jeju, the police leadership’s response was similar. On the 26th, they announced, “We will conduct a full investigation into approximately 310,000 missing persons cases closed over the past three years by November.”
However, frontline officers unanimously state, “The fundamental solution is to increase the number of personnel in missing persons investigation teams.” A senior detective at a police station in Seoul said, “The leadership’s ‘full reviews’ and ‘system improvements’ are likely to end up as empty slogans, as seen in past cases.”
There have been instances where crimes increased despite the leadership’s measures. In 2024, a female police officer in her 30s was caught attempting to intrude twice into a trot singer’s home after accessing the address through an internal police network. In response, the police proposed a measure requiring supervisor verification for personal information inquiries. However, personal information leaks by police officers have since increased. According to data from the office of Rep. Park Sang-woong of the People Power Party, the number of leaks rose from 8 cases in 2022, 7 cases in 2023, and 7 cases in 2024 to 22 cases in 2025 after the measure was implemented. This year, 28 cases have already been detected as of August.
Critics argue that the so-called “comprehensive measures” by the police leadership are merely attempts to deflect public criticism. A review of 2,413 press releases from the National Police Agency between January 2017 and the 25th of this month by this newspaper found that 28 announcements were titled “comprehensive measures,” “eradication measures,” or “improvement plans.” This means a new improvement plan is announced roughly every four months under the guise of innovating public safety policies. By category, six were related to traffic and internal police corruption, four to fraud crimes, and two each to drugs and school violence during the new semester.
Rep. Park Sang-woong stated, “The recurrence of the same accidents in the police force is not a matter of individual mistakes. It is unacceptable for the leadership to evade responsibility by merely announcing superficial measures whenever an incident occurs.”
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