The role of the police in criminal investigations is set to expand sharply as the prosecution service is dissolved on the 2nd and its functions pass to the new Serious Crimes Investigation Agency. The overhaul of the criminal justice system has moved at speed, but the work of reshaping the checks and controls on the police force has far to go. Flaws in the police organization have surfaced one after another since investigative authority was expected to concentrate in their hands, yet critics say structural reform — ways to control the powers of a 140,000-strong force, or to secure investigative expertise — and the building of oversight mechanisms have been relatively neglected.
Kim Jong-cheol, acting commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency, summoned about 650 commanders from across the country on the 1st, a day before the revised Criminal Procedure Act takes effect, to review the force's overall readiness and declare an emergency posture to bed in the new system. At 2 p.m. at the agency's headquarters in Migeun-dong, Seodaemun District, Seoul, Kim opened a nationwide investigative commanders' meeting and said the public was watching closely to see "whether the police have sufficient capacity and whether they exercise their authority fairly and with restraint." He added, "I declare a shift to an emergency response posture until the new system has fully taken root in the field."
The police said they would set up a system requiring front-line station chiefs to check daily on the handling of major cases and of cases flagged by prosecutors. Provincial and metropolitan agencies and the National Office of Investigation will conduct overlapping reviews. Procedures protecting victims' rights, including questioning of victims and follow-up steps, will also be strengthened. Explanations of case progress will be made more substantive through online notifications, with the aim of making the investigative process transparent. Where evidence of serious misconduct by officers such as case manipulation or bribery emerges, the agency said it would pursue the matter aggressively and treat dismissal or removal from office as the standard penalty.
The force had already suffered a heavy blow to its credibility over allegations that it covered up and botched the investigation into the Jang Yoon-gi case and over the false closure of the disappearance of Jang Mi-ran in Jeju Special Self-Governing Province. In response, police rolled out a range of measures, including rules barring officers from handling cases involving people close to them, expanded rotation of personnel and the creation of an internal corruption investigation unit. Critics say these amount to no more than remedies applied after the fact to prevent repeats. Work on the force's broader structure — strengthening the National Police Commission's substantive control powers, securing expertise among investigative officers — has been called for for years and remains unfinished. Police powers are widening, in other words, while the internal and external controls needed to monitor them are not in place.
The biggest problem is that the top post has sat empty even as these reform discussions proceed. After former Commissioner General Cho Ji-ho was removed from duty in December 2024 over his role in the Dec. 3 martial law declaration, deputy commissioners Lee Ho-young and Yoo Jae-sung served as acting chief in turn. In September, Kim Jong-cheol took over as the third acting chief after being named deputy commissioner. With the post vacant at a time when institutions and mechanisms affecting the entire force are under discussion, there is concern that it will be hard to consolidate views inside the police or to design proper mechanisms. Critics also say a prolonged acting arrangement blurs who is driving police reform and who is accountable for it. If a new commissioner general reorders the priorities or the approach of the existing overhaul plans, the discussions held so far could return to square one.
Others say the measures are stopgaps. The signature steps the police have put forward this year are the rules on conflict-of-interest recusal and expanded personnel rotation. The recusal rules were applied in recent senior-level appointments, but the rotation plan has run into trouble. The force said it would expand rotation to prevent collusion with local interests and internal corruption, only to meet strong resistance from within. Officers have raised concerns that investigative expertise and local knowledge could suffer. Working-level talks between the Korean National Police Agency and the police workplace council have broken down, and resistance from the field continues.
Giving the National Police Commission real teeth also remains a distant goal. The commission deliberates on and approves police policy, but its independence and powers have long been described as limited. The government has itself identified an empowered commission as a core task of police reform. The police have put forward a restructuring plan that would give the commission the power to demand reports on measures taken by the force and to request disciplinary action, along with its own administrative secretariat. Even so, the question of who controls the police, by what standards and to what degree remains unsettled.
A senior police official said it was difficult to complete reform of a 140,000-person organization by bolting on a new system each time a particular case blew up. "This is a moment that calls for a long-term design that ties together police authority and accountability, external control, personnel management and investigative expertise as a single system," the official said.
