It was revealed that the number of long-term cold cases that prosecutors have been unable to process for more than three months this year exceeded 22,000. Since the adjustment of investigative authority in 2021, the figure has steadily increased over the past four years.
According to the "status of long-term cold cases handled by prosecutors" submitted by the Ministry of Justice to Park Eun-jung, a Rebuilding Korea Party lawmaker on the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, on 28th, the number of long-term cases exceeding three months handled by prosecutors from January through the end of July was 22,564.
Previously, the number of long-term cold cases fell temporarily from 11,008 in 2020 to 4,426 during the 2021 investigative authority adjustment. However, it increased each year to 9,268 in 2022, 14,421 in 2023, and 18,198 in 2024.
The share of long-term cases exceeding three months among all unresolved cases under prosecution also rose from 13.7% in 2021 to 28.2% last year.
Long-term cases that have remained unprocessed for more than six months increased from 2,503 in 2021 to 9,123 last year, and to 9,988 through July this year.
The total number of cases during this period did not increase significantly. The number of cases handled by prosecutors rose 9% from 1,112,953 in 2021 to 1,235,881 last year, but the number of long-term cases more than quadrupled over the same period.
The increase in long-term cases is attributed to the handling of cases becoming more complicated after the adjustment of investigative authority. There is also analysis that difficulties arose due to a shortage of investigators in criminal divisions and the dispatch of personnel earlier this year to the special investigation headquarters on martial law.