The National Police Agency headquarters stands in Seodaemun District, western Seoul, on Oct. 2, the day the 78-year-old Prosecutors' Office closes and the police take on wider investigative powers.NEWS1
Police investigators, already stretched thin, are bracing for a fresh surge of cases as the Prosecutors' Office closes, and a growing number of officers are looking to leave investigative work altogether.
Under the criminal justice overhaul that took effect Friday, the police must take over many of the more than 160,000 unresolved cases the prosecution held as of August. Most of the criminal complaints once filed with prosecutors now go to the police as well, along with what remained of the prosecution's already limited investigative role.
The 78-year-old Prosecutors' Office has been replaced by two new agencies: the Public Prosecution Service, which handles indictments, and the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, which investigates major crimes.
Police investigators are already behind. Backlogs and a rise in criminal complaints pushed the average number of cases received per investigator from 100.8 a year in 2021 to 133.8 last year.
More and more investigators have complained about poor working conditions as overtime keeps climbing. Investigative department personnel, including civilian staff, logged an average of 72.9 hours of overtime a month from January through July, with the figure climbing each year from 62.4 hours in 2023.
"When I came in to work on the Sunday before Chuseok, half the department was there," the head of the investigation division at a police precinct said. "We have hit the point where, unless we work like this, there is no handling the cases flooding in."
Employees greet one another on the roof of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency in Daegu on its first day of operations, on Oct. 2.YONHAP
The police added 1,907 officers to investigative departments from last year through the first half of this year and plan to assign about 2,100 more in the second half. Most of them, however, are officers reassigned from riot police units and other noninvestigative posts, so they offer limited relief in the short term.
Front line officers are growing more reluctant to take on investigative work. The number of officers who voluntarily gave up their investigative track status rose from 565 last year to 633 this year. The status gives officers priority when investigative departments fill posts.
"Holding investigative track status does not give you an edge in promotion or anything else," a senior officer in an investigative department said. "If anything, it puts you at greater risk of being dragged into an investigative unit. The work is so grueling that some officers in investigative departments have taken their workload to the grievance committee and asked to be sent down to police substations and police boxes."
The National Police Agency headquarters stands in Seodaemun District, western Seoul, on Oct. 2, the day the 78-year-old Prosecutors' Office closes and police take on wider investigative powers.NEWS1
YUN YOUNGYUN YOUNG
The police have yet to stem the flight from investigative units, let alone build up their investigative capabilities, and the force is also facing growing public criticism over whether its investigations are impartial.
"Budgets need to be secured so investigative officers can stay on for the long term and sharpen their investigative skills," Lim Jun-tae, a police administration professor at Dongguk University, said. "Until now, the police and the prosecution have come across as rivals competing over investigations. Under the Public Prosecution Service system, they need to cooperate, including on setting the direction of investigations."
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
