Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Steelrails]

How do you view them?

I for one enjoy the general lack of law enforcement here. At the same time nothing bad has happened yet to me and that view could change.

Where do you fall?

[Senior]

My experience of Korean law enforcement has been generally positive. A few weeks ago I was sitting outside a GS Mart drinking some beer with a quite large group of foreigners (It was right outside a bar). A Korean dude was hanging around being obnoxious and generally annoying. He started a fight with one of the guys, after which we asked him repeatedly to leave. The clerk at the GS Mart called the police and they asked him to leave as well. Which he still refused. Eventually they tried to haul him away, but he fought back against the cops! They were ridiculously calm, despite the dude shoving them, and eventually bundled him into the cop car.

Back home (NZ), the best that dude could hope for would be a face full of pepper spray or 10,000 volts.

[Italy37612]

It seems to me that the majority of the cops here don't even want to be cops or are just pansies. I can't tell you how many times I went speeding by a cop in the USA.... my heart rate immediately doubled and I started to pray that he didn't have his radar gun out. In Korea I don't think I have ever gone the speed limit (it is pathetically low in most places anyways). I have rode right past a cop before and I didn't even bat an eye. Knowing the odds of anything actually happening were about 1%.

[nautilus]

[mayorgc]

The only time I've seen cops in action was last week when a cop actually pulled someone over, with flashing lights and loudspeaker and everything.

Koreans are in for some very dark days in the near future. One day, a very disturbed individual is gonna realize that the cops are pretty much impotent and he's just gonna go on a spree.

The cops didn't step up their efforts after Jo Du Sun, they didn't step up their efforts after Kim Gil Tae and just last week, a couple blocks away from a police station, Kim Su-Cheol kidnaps a girl from an Elementary school.

A korean will one day realize that if he really really really wanted to get away with a crime, all he has to do is stay away from soju and the cops won't have a clue.

[nautilus]

[Captain Corea]

I cringe at new laws being created here - they simply need to enforce the ones they have.

[Moldy Rutabaga]

When I go back to Canada, or even the USA, I'm struck by how un-free most life really is. Smoke a cigarette? Attack helicopters. Drink a beer outside? Someone think of the children. Put a cross in your business window? Someone might be offended. In comparison, things seem so free here. To me it's one of the reasons there are so many extreme crimes in North America, that when there's way too many rules, respect is eaten away for any rule.

Here there are less rules, and they are not well-enforced. Ideally there would be a balance. I would prefer fewer rules that are well-enforced. In Oregon I get stopped on a wide, sunny, quiet highway for going over 55 and get charged $250 for a fine that's clearly just to pump up the local town's coffers. Here I stay out of trouble because of one rule that's always enforced: the foreigner is guilty. Neither situation is perfect.

[PatrickGHBusan]

Canada is battling a terminal case of PC...

It is a good place to live and work but the PC on roids is unbelievably annoying!

[Dragoon]

I hate all cops...in every country...especially the U.S. So that means I also hate Korean cops.

[Steelrails]

Woops my poll choice of "Police are pretty bad. Things need serious work, but it's not THAT bad" didn't make it in and I am too dim to figure out how to edit that.


To elaborate-
I have neither seen the police doing their job here (besides making ticket money and directing traffic) nor felt the need for their help nor felt threatened by them or concerned for them randomly patting me down. Such a non-entity.

I agree with Moldy- I LOVE the lack of nanny laws. Sure it means some litter or whatnot, but boy I don't feel like the very fabric of society is being torn away and being sucked into this Prison-Industrial-Complex state.

[warmachinenkorea]

I too am surprised by the lack of enforcement. Until I was stopped for jay walking. The cops got out of there car and asked...

COP: Do you know why I stopped you?

ME: Not really.

COP: Jaywalking!

ME: Ok.

COP: Can I see your I.D?

Me: (handing him my ARC) Here.

COP: You're from America?

ME: Yeap.

COP: You know America is a developed country you should set an example for Koreans.

ME: (Shocked at what I just heard) Are you serious?

COP: (Smiling) You're an American you shouldn't break the rules.

ME: Look I've got to get to class and your holding me up. Give me back my I.D

COP: Here you are. (Drops his head and leaves)

Back in The States a cop would have jumped on me when I showed any kinda attitude. I have a small adversion to authority so I've done it before. These guys just walked off.

[jvalmer]

I think the general lack of enforcement of police here is a result of a couple of decades of being under a police state. The police are making up for decades of brutality, but have gone a little too far on the easy side. Most of the posters here probably can't imagine the conditions of being arrested in the 80's or before.

[Summer Wine]

[The Gipkik]

There are positives and negatives. The lack of traffic rules enforcement is dangerous and annoying, but the Koreans have accepted this state of chaos and either drive slower or expect everyone to get out of the way. Otherwise, cops here are almost non-existent. They lack the gargantuan righteous force of the law egos, the authority without exception, that I see over and over again in North America, so that is a good thing. Seems that becoming a police officer here doesn't have the same glamor and sex appeal that it has in some countries, which I like. This cop worship/admiration or profound resentment/hatred is one thing I hate about North America.