Crime in South Korea

[4] There is also a problem in the nation with foreign criminals targeting it due to its relatively affluent status and the perception that it has lax security.

[7] South Korea has undergone dramatic social, economic and political upheaval since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

[9] Traditional South Korean criminal groups fights rarely resulted in deaths as they fought with their hands, feet and heads.

In today’s South Korean society, no person may be in possession of any guns, swords or knives, which may explain why traditional crime groups did not use weapons.

[8] Upon the assassination of President Park in 1979 “special measures to uproot social evils” were initiated under the proclaimed martial law which led to a decline in organized criminal violence.

With the 1985 Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics global expansion became a possibility and criminal groups took advantage of this opportunity for rapid economic development.

Taking advantage of the Korean government's open-door and globalization policies, these crime groups began to form coalitions with their counterparts in Japan, China, Hong Kong, and the United States.

[8] In 1990 the Korean Government declared a “war on crime” in an effort to crack down on violent and non-violent acts by criminally organized groups.

[8] With the trend of economic growth and globalization, organized crime groups in South Korea have become larger in scale and broader in their fields of operations.

These two districts are found on the southwest part of the capital, Seoul, which house many low income citizens and foreign workers.

A Dongguk University Police Administration professor, Kwak Dae-gyung said, “there are many foreign residents that have yet to adapt to Korean society and citizens lower in the economic strata in these areas, there’s trouble in terms of economic competition and a lengthy period of cultural assimilation that leads to people committing violent crimes out of frustration and the need for frequent police action.”[10] South Korea dropped one notch in an international corruption awareness ranking to 46th place among 177 nations in 2013.

That ranks South Korea alongside countries and territories such as Botswana, Puerto Rico and Poland but far below many of the developed nations it has sought to emulate.

[15] In addition, a similar report by the Institute noted that 20% of men in their 20s pay for sex at least four times a month,[16] with 358,000 visiting prostitutes daily.