Ⅰ. Guaranteeing the Fundamental Human Freedoms: 1. Right to Life and Personal Liberty
station must protect 80 people. However, field police work has become an
undesired job for reasons of workload and promotion, etc., and some are mostly
made up of inexperienced police officers, and some are not fully filled.
The second is the problem regarding the hiring method. Only the people who
have completed the police academy can apply to become a police officer in the
US, to weed out the unqualified people during the training process, but a score
from a standardized test is an important factor in hiring a police officer in Korea.
The floor noise case in Incheon raised opinions related to the process of selecting
female police officers, but the problem regarding the hiring method is unrelated to
the gender of the police officer.
Also, the police culture that tries not to use the proper level of physical force is
also a problem. According to the ‘Study on the Impact of the Characteristic of the
Subject on the Police’s Exercise of Physical Force’ by the Korean Institute of
Criminology and Justice (Dec. 5, 2021), the police typically respond with low-risk
physical force when the other side resists violently. The study reasoned that the
police action was due to criticism for the use of excessive force, a lack of support
when injured while on the job, harsh personnel actions from on-the-spot judgment
different from the manual, etc.
C) Amendment of the Act on the Performance of Duties by Police Officers
and Concerns
The police faced people’s criticism related to the above cases, and the amendment
to the Act on the Performance of Duties by Police Officers was implemented as the
police on the field said that they needed exemption provisions to respond more
actively. The amendment to the “Act on the Performance of Duties by Police
Officers” was approved in Jan. 2022, which included a provision on deducing or
exempting the criminal liability of police officers if causing damage to others
while performing his/her duties at a crime scene, if this is not done intentionally or
with gross negligence.
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