Prime Minister Han Seong-sook said details of a police reform body to be set up within the Prime Minister's Office at President Lee Jae-myung's direction would be announced soon. "It has just begun, so I should be able to tell you before long," Han said.
Han made the remarks in a meeting with reporters at the Government Complex Seoul in Jongno District on the 27th. "The Jang Mi-ran case that came up during the National Assembly budget committee session was too shocking, and the way it was handled was hard to accept," the prime minister said.
"The president instructed the Prime Minister's Office to prepare the police reform body, so the day after the budget committee session ended, I summoned senior police officials, including acting Korean National Police Agency Commissioner Yoo Jae-sung, and gave several instructions," Han said. "I called for parts of the system dealing with missing-person cases to be improved quickly, for rules to be changed swiftly, and for the leadership to take a more active role in solving the problem."
A review of how efficiently the police organization operates is also expected. "We talk about 130,000 police officers, but I asked for a breakdown of what officers across the country are doing in which areas," Han said. "I said we should properly analyze the data on how many officers are assigned to which duties within the organization and what experience they have."
The reform body is expected to be composed mainly of experts from outside the police. "Is it really possible to carry out reform from the inside?" Han said. "Reform has to come in the form of measures the public can accept, measures that anyone would find reasonable."
She added: "Mechanisms and steps for reform are needed internally as well, but if it is a body that examines the whole picture, I think it would be somewhat difficult for it to sit inside the police."
