Female Empowerment in South Korean Law Enforcement
"The Police Act stipulates that the top priority is to protect people's lives and health, as well as to prevent and suppress crimes, but the Incheon incident was a complete retreat [by the officer]."Oh Yeong-hwan, ruling Democratic Party politician"This is not about whether it was a male or a female officer, but about the basic attitude of officers at the scene.""The president has ordered the strengthening of relevant training and an improvement of systems to prevent a recurrence of such incidents."Government official"We don't need an officer that requests help from citizens when they are making an arrest.""There is a physical difference Female officers should take the same physical tests as men or be placed in a safer, more comfortable position."Presidential office website petition: to end female police recruitment
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| South Korea's military has been questioned for a number of years over its failure to protect female personnel (file photo) A transgender female took her own life when she was refused her request to be transferred to a female battalion after being sexually harassed by her male counterparts. |
It has been a goal for several years in South Korea to increase the number of women in the national police to 15 percent of the 130,000-strong force. The year 2022 was vaunted as the time when that goal would be achieved. Women comprised 13.4 percent of the police force in December of 2020. The plan has not been received well everywhere. A video of a female officer struggling to control a violent drunk male went viral, leading to a petition to rescind the plan.
More recently, according to a witness to a violent crime where a woman was being horribly attacked by a knife-wielding assailant in a home in Incheon, of the two responding police officers, the woman "ran downstairs screaming" after the attacker emerged with the knife. When she and her colleague had been called to respond, they were both armed with stun guns and batons.
That incident, among others, has resulted in the police being accused by the public of "dereliction of duty" and "bungled responses", bringing "shame" on the force following the stabbing that left a woman seriously injured in hospital, two officers on the scene notwithstanding. Even politicians of the leading political party in power are skeptical over the success of the move to gear up the police force with a greater percentage of women.
As for the opposition, this has given Lee Jun-seok, head of the conservative People Power Party the opportunity to claim that gender equality measures are having the dubious effect of disempowering the utility and reliability of the police force. Advocating an end to hiring practices adapted with the goal of increasing the number of female recruits. Police officers, he emphasized, should be hired only on appropriate merit.
There was a response in that all the criticism from the public in particular led police authorities to announce plans for upgrading assessment for fitness when hiring women, geared to match standards for men as serving police officers.
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| A police officer stands guard behind a barricade in front of the South Korean National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon |
Labels: Duty Responses, Female Police Officers, Public Safety, South Korea
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, November 25, 2021
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