Who’s responsible for police officer suicides?

The police leadership should take responsibility for the latest losses of their men.

Back-to-back suicides of police officers demand urgent attention. Two policemen in Seoul and Yesan, South Chungcheong, ended their own lives over the last 10 days. Korea has the highest suicide rate among OECD countries. President Yoon Suk Yeol last month pronounced suicide prevention as a state agenda, because “the state is not fulfilling its role if every citizen is not happy, regardless of the country’s elevation as one of the world’s top 10 economies and a cultural powerhouse.” The National Police Agency, together with the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Fire Agency, are the state authorities responsible for stopping self-harming. But the police could not tend to their own family.

The police officers who committed suicide had been under enormous work stress. In a press conference, an association of police officers said that the junior officer had to handle 40 to 50 cases upon being assigned to the police station. The police’s workload has ballooned since the Moon Jae-in administration handed over much of the prosecution’s investigative power to the police. Police officers who previously took commands from prosecutors had to work on their own.

The liberal government and the Democratic Party were too engrossed in demoralizing the prosecution after it went after the sitting power. But unfortunately, there is no coordinative mechanism even as criminal cases ping-pong between the two law enforcement offices. Citizens must frustratingly wait forever for any progress over their cases. The complaints all fall on the police. Police officers jokingly say the smart ones are those who can escape from investigative jobs.

Police leadership is largely blamed for the mishap because it has been too busy gloating over the enlargement of police power. After the police came under fire in the wake of mass casualties from the Itaewon crowd crush and the Osong underpass drowning followed by random stabbings in subway stations in the capital area, the National Police Agency assigned 2,900 office workers to the field.

From this year, the police agency took additional responsibility for hunting down spies after the investigative power was transferred from the National Intelligence Service. Although the extra burden was obviously beyond its capacity, the police leadership willingly took up the role. But the oversight on spying activities has significantly waned, and the onus will eventually fall on the police.

The police leadership should take responsibility for the latest losses of their men. Politicians must share the blame as they made reckless changes in the investigative authority. The investigative system which was distorted just for political purposes must be amended to stop the harm on rank-and-file police officers.