Jeju police are overhauling their response system, including adding investigators, after a string of recent disappearances on the island raised concerns about public safety.
The Jeju Provincial Police Agency said on the 9th that it will carry out a comprehensive public safety plan for Jeju together with the provincial government and other related agencies and organizations.
Under the plan, police will review the entire response process — from the initial missing-person report through search, discovery and case closure — and sharply increase the number of investigators handling such cases.
As a first step, police will require in-person verification of both the person filing a report and the missing person. Police station chiefs will personally review missing-person reports filed the previous day to check whether cases were closed appropriately.
Police also strengthened cooperation with other stations so that they can quickly confirm whether a missing person is safe even when the person is located in another region.
Missing-person investigation teams at each police station will be expanded to nine officers each, from the current four to five.
Eight team members will work in shifts to maintain an effective two-officer roster overnight, with detective duty teams providing additional personnel when needed.
Police will also expand foot patrols and fixed-point patrols and concentrate wide-area crime prevention patrol units and detective duty teams in areas vulnerable to crime, part of an effort to strengthen "visible policing" that residents can actually see.
Police will conduct a full inspection of crime prevention facilities along the Jeju Olle and Dulle trails, including closed-circuit television cameras, emergency bells and lighting, and upgrade those found lacking. They will also carry out aerial patrols using police helicopters.
In addition, police plan to strengthen protection for victims of relationship-based crimes such as stalking, domestic violence and dating violence, and to step up monitoring of false information online.
"Above all, it is important to mount an all-out response without missing the golden hour right after an incident occurs and a report comes in," Jeju Provincial Police Agency Commissioner Kim Byung-chan said at a press briefing that day. "We will improve the system so that citizens are never again harmed by mishandled cases, including missing-person cases."
On the case of a police officer who was detained and referred to prosecutors on charges of falsely closing a missing-person report, Kim said: "Primarily it is an individual's problem, but it cannot be dismissed as an individual's problem alone. There are also problems with the system for handling missing-person cases. We must hold the individual strictly accountable while at the same time fixing problems in oversight and in the case-handling system."
