More than 200 police officers have been sent to trial over the past five years on charges of job-related crimes, including leaking investigative information or falsifying public records.
According to materials submitted by People Power Party lawmaker Park Sang-ung from the Korean National Police Agency on the 6th, a total of 209 police officers were sent to trial from 2021 through July this year on charges including leaking official secrets, violating the Personal Information Protection Act, forging official documents, falsifying electronic public records, misconduct, abuse of authority, dereliction of duty, destruction of evidence, and harboring a criminal.
By year, there were 44 in 2021, 37 in 2022, 36 in 2023, 41 in 2024, 34 last year, and 17 through July this year.
By charge, leaking official secrets accounted for the most, with 70 officers sent to trial. All of these were referred to full trials. Violations of the Personal Information Protection Act totaled 32, and violations of the Act on Digitalization of Criminal Procedure, which applies to cases such as leaking or processing without authority information from the police criminal justice information system, totaled 27.
Thirty-one officers were indicted for forging or using forged official documents, and 20 faced charges related to falsifying electronic public records. There were 23 for misconduct, 20 for abuse of authority, 10 for dereliction of duty, 10 for harboring a criminal, and 7 for destruction of evidence. However, because multiple charges were applied in some cases, the simple sum by charge exceeds the total number of individuals.
Of the 178 sent to full trials, 103 received heavy disciplinary action. Light disciplinary action was imposed on 24, and 17 received non-disciplinary dispositions such as cautions or warnings. Procedures are still underway for 30.
Lawmaker Park Sang-ung said, "We need to comprehensively review disciplinary standards and screening procedures so that the investigative findings and disciplinary action for job-related crimes do not move at cross purposes."