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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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South Korea
Index
During the late 1980s, South Korea experienced a jump in its
traditionally low rates of violent crime. A growing number of
violent crimes were directed against women, a fact that drew
special public concern.
The Korean National Police authorities denied that there was
any "organized crime" in South Korea, although police boxes in
Seoul in 1990 posted signs encouraging citizens to report any
information concerning p'ongnyokpae, violent bands of men
armed with knives and improvised weapons who contributed to the
rise in violent assaults throughout the city. Although there were
some ties between Japan's underworld--the yakuza (Japanese
gangsters)--and South Korean criminal groups through ethnic
Koreans residing in Japan, yakuza "bosses" did not direct
the extension of yakuza activities into South Korea.
Nevertheless, the disturbing increase in violent crime and
apparent disputes between criminal groups suggested that if
organized crime did not yet exist in South Korea in 1989, its
precursors were evident.
Historically, narcotics abuse in South Korea had been very
low, was confined primarily to marginal urban low-income groups,
and did not include either heroin or cocaine abuse
(see Health Conditions
, ch. 2). In the late 1980s, narcotics abuse remained
low but had steadily increased, becoming a social and political
issue. In reaction to this increase, enforcement responsibility
was transferred from the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs to
the Narcotics Division of the Supreme Prosecution Administration
under the Ministry of Justice. This action gave narcotics
enforcement a higher priority, more staffing, and more funding.
(Drug-related arrests had increased from 810 in 1985 to 1,227 in
1987 and to 1,606 in 1988.) Most drug-related criminal activity
involved the manufacture or abuse of methamphetamine and South
Korea's emergence as a major Asian producer of hirropon,
an illicit methamphetamine. A related problem was transshipment
of Asian heroin destined for the United States and other world
markets.
Data as of June 1990
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