• Korean Security Journal
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• no.28
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• pp.181-205
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• 2011

There are various discussions about introducing private investigation in South Korea these days, and training private investigators is one of the main topics. Training private investigators, unlike other training, is required to instill expertise and ethical quality into the trainees since the major task of the investigators includes protecting the lives of the citizens as well as their properties. Therefore, many agree to the idea that systematic educational programs need to be organized to produce private investigators with expertness and morality. In this study, we explored the opinions of those who are concerned with this issue of establishing private investigation in the university education and analyzed the data by using the NVivo 2 program. The result revealed that the reasons that people supported the idea of launching private investigator services were as follows. First, there is lack of manpower to maintain peace and public order in the country. Second, the police does not intervene actively and help harmed victims unless it is a consequential incident. Third, in position to wield public power, police officers cannot get involved in civil affairs. Also, absence of an academic institution to educate private investigators and lack of the police and clients' trust in private investigation were the two biggest reasons that people approved the proposal to introduce department of private investigation in universities. The interviewees of the study believed the outlook and future direction for private investigation would change depending on the status of the licensed private investigation business bill. Before the bill passes, they thought that the work of private investigators will be performed by insurance companies, foreign private investigation businesses, domestic consulting firms, and security providers which supply similar services. On the other hand, after the bill passes, they believed that numerous private investigator corporations resembling existing security corporations will be founded in addition to the current market, and that private investigation in the academic field will also be vitalized.