Numbers fail to show seriousness of drug-related crimes

Jung Jae-nam, head of the narcotics division of Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police, speaks about a crackdown on criminal groups involved in the smuggling of illicit drugs from the Philippines during a news conference held in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province on Wednesday. Yonhap

Experts say drug-related offenses are the dark figure of crime and data fails to reflect reality

By Kang Hyun-kyung

President Yoon Suk Yeol's remarks during a town hall meeting in December last year sparked a debate about the rationale of local politicians who repeatedly use the inaccurate description that South Korea is "a country free from drug-related crimes."

"About 10 years ago or so, South Korea used to be a country free of drug-related crimes," he said during a meeting with 100 representatives from the public televised in real time. "But from a certain point of time, however, prosecutors were forced to pass on to the police investigations into the drug-related crimes. After that, the two law enforcement agencies stopped collaborating and their teamwork became ineffective."

He was referring to the realignment of jurisdiction in drug-related crimes and the abolishment of the division in charge of gangs and narcotics at the prosecution during the previous Moon Jae-in government. After the reform, the police took over most of the jurisdiction from the prosecution.

Yoon stressed that the possession, production, abuse and distribution of illicit drugs pose a grave threat to society and the government will not sit back idly.

Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon responded that he believes the rise of drug-related crimes can be controlled if the government launches an all-out effort to crack down on them.

The government then declared a war against illegal drugs.

Yoon is not the first politician to call South Korea a nation once free of drug crimes.

Before him, many other politicians and policymakers openly made similar remarks, pitching the nation as a safe country to travel and an exemplary country for others grappling with narcotics-related crimes.

Kim Hee-jun, an attorney at Seoul-based law firm, LKB & Partners, said prosecutors began to describe the nation as being safe from drug-related crimes since the successful crackdown in the 1990s on organized crime groups involved in distributing illicit drugs, including methamphetamine.

In the wake of then President Roh Tae-woo's declaration of war against crimes in October, 1990, the prosecutor-turned-lawyer said a drug investigation squad was established inside the prosecution.

"The special division was in charge of organized crime groups and their distribution of methamphetamine and they launched a nationwide crackdown on the criminals," Kim told The Korea Times. "The crackdown was quite successful. If the purge of drug gangs in the 1990s had not succeeded, South Korea would be very different now. You will know this, if you look at other countries grappling with organized crime. Transnational crime groups, such as the Yakuza and Mafia, have grown fast as their respective local law enforcement agencies failed to crack down on them and now they are out of control."

Elated by the successful crackdown, Kim said people in the prosecution began to use the expression that South Korea is free of drug-related crimes. Although inaccurate, he said, the phrase reflects their confidence that in South Korea, drug-related crimes are under control.

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On top of prosecutors and politicians, academics are another group of people who frequently use the inaccurate expression.

"Researchers and academics who look at drug-related crimes used to portray South Korea as a nation safe from drug-related crimes as the related crime rate in this country is lower than that of others," Kim Nang-hee, a research fellow at the Seoul-based think tank, Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice, said.

Compared to countries like the United States or Mexico, she said it is true that South Korea is safe from drug-related crimes and the crimes are properly controlled.

But the drug-related crime rate reveals statistical fallacies.

It is misleading to conclude that a certain country is safe from drug-related crimes just because its related crime rate is less than 20 per 100,000 of the population.

Unlike other crimes, experts say drug-related offenses are the dark figure of crime, an offense that was not reported or recorded to the law enforcement agencies.

Depending on experts, Kim said the actual number of illicit drug-related cases is projected to be 28 to 100 times higher than the figure that was reported.

"This being said, there are many more drug offenders than the cases identified by the government," he said.

According to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, 18,395 illicit drug offenders were caught last year alone. That is up 13.9 percent from 2021.

This implies that the actual number of offenders may be as many as 1.8 million.

Considering that drug-related offenses are the dark figure of crime, Kim said the crime rate does not show exactly how serious drug-related crimes are in a country.

"The drug-related crime rate goes down if drug enforcement officials do not do their job, which is cracking down on criminals. Then the nation can be called a country safe from drug-related crimes," he said, illustrating an example of the statistical fallacy.

Kim said the number of illicit drug cases rose over the recent past months after the Yoon government declared war on drug-related crimes.

"I take this as being positive, because that means drug enforcement officials are doing their job and unreported or unrecorded crimes are beginning to be discovered and solved," he said.