"Even with 10 mouths, I would have nothing to say." That is the answer officers give when asked about the case in Jeju Special Self-Governing Province in which a missing-person report was falsely closed. Some dismiss it as the personal failing of a police sergeant surnamed Boo, calling it "the deviation of one individual." But when pressed on whether the command's oversight also failed, most bow their heads and say there is no excuse.
Police, whose fairness and credibility were badly damaged in the first half of this year by the botched investigation in the Jang Yun-gi case, have been plunged into another crisis in the second half by the false closure of the Jeju missing-person report. As a law enforcement agency charged with protecting lives and public safety faces repeated criticism over shoddy investigations and failed supervision, public trust in the police is shaking badly.
The force has scrambled to overhaul itself, but containing the fallout looks difficult. After the Jang Yun-gi case, police set up an investigation reform committee under the National Office of Investigation, and more recently launched a police reform unit built around public participation and field engagement to overhaul the organization and its operations. On top of that, work is under way to form a separate police reform body under the Office of the Prime Minister on instructions from President Lee Jae-myung, and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea is running its own police reform task force. While plausible-sounding innovation bodies sprout up each time a scandal breaks, effective measures to fix the structural failures are hard to find.
Some argue the police have already missed the golden hour to win back public trust after the Jeju case. The problem is that, against this backdrop, the revised Criminal Procedure Act takes effect on Oct. 2, stripping prosecutors of their direct investigative powers and supplementary investigation authority and expanding the scope of police investigations. With doubts mounting over investigative capacity and internal controls, it is questionable whether further botched investigations can be prevented if the checks that should accompany broader authority remain inadequate.
If the police fail to establish a sense of responsibility and an effective internal control system commensurate with the weight of their new powers, bloated investigative authority could become shackles on the force itself. What is needed now is not another innovation body but fundamental self-corrective steps that cut out the failures on the ground. Police should keep in mind that unless they prove a genuine transformation, they could lose the last of the public's trust.
