A single police officer’s misconduct crippled South Korea’s missing-person protocol
Translated from Korean and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.
At a glance
Analysis
Named sources
Under investigation
- South Korea’s missing-person manual requires joint review within 12 hours when a person’s whereabouts remain unknown, along with face-to-face confirmation and supervisory approval before closure.
- In a Jeju case, an officer allegedly deleted records without confirming the missing person’s safety and closed the case independently, preventing later procedures from starting.
- Experts and police have called for stronger controls, while staffing shortages have increased caseloads for missing-person teams.
South Korea’s detailed missing-person response manual failed at its first test in a Jeju case because one officer bypassed it. At Jeju Western Police Station, an officer identified only by surname Bu allegedly deleted digital records and closed the case without confirming Jang’s safety.
That initial action stopped the procedures required by the manual from taking place. Those measures include a joint review when a missing person remains unlocated after 12 hours, detailed searches and, before closure, face-to-face confirmation, profiling-system registration and managerial approval.
Because missing-person cases have diverse motives, police inevitably have more discretion than a manual can provide.
The rules grew stricter after several high-profile cases. A criminal missing-persons team was established after the 2007 abduction and murder of two elementary school children in Anyang. Procedures were later refined after the 2017 “Molar Daddy” case and the 2019 Go Yoo-jung case.
The Jeju case echoed failures exposed in the Go Yoo-jung investigation. Police had reportedly checked the locations of closed-circuit television cameras in an area linked to the missing-person report without reviewing the footage. The force later made risk assessment mandatory, but the same type of breakdown reappeared seven years later.
A system to control abuses of discretion must be established urgently.
Dongguk University police administration professor Lee Yoon-ho said missing cases necessarily give officers broad discretion because their circumstances vary. He called for a system to control abuses of that discretion. Police have also acknowledged that solo shifts create risks of inadequate action and false reports, particularly when many reports arrive at once.
Missing-person cases can immediately become serious crimes.
The number of officers assigned to missing-person teams fell from 848 in 2022 to 784 this year, while the average caseload rose from 146.5 to 167.8 cases per officer. Police have proposed banning remote closures in principle and are seeking more investigators and internal-control staff.
The first 12 hours remain the critical window. Although 82.9% of adult missing-person reports last year were cleared within that period, the clearance rate fell sharply afterward. Police recorded 478 people found dead after missing-person reports in the first seven months of this year, while 4,805 missing people were found dead over the previous four and a half years.
There are risks of inadequate action and false reports because of solo work, as well as inadequate responses when reports pile up.
About this summary
Originally published by Hankyoreh in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.
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