• Korean Security Journal
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• no.10
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• pp.355-385
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• 2005

As the system of autonomous police that has been debated for long time is fixed to be introduced by the program of participatory government, this treatise intends to analyze main contents and review controversial items in order to present supplementary measures. The program of participatory government to introduce autonomous police in Korea focuses on converting the autonomous police of Korea from centralized police administration in order to provide 'customized security service' that is appropriate to the regional environment. Thus, if relevant city, county or district considers that it is required to introduce the system autonomous police, the assembly may enforce the decision by enacting ordinance. For enforcement, organization in the unit of section will be established in the line of mayor, county headman and district office. The main role will be security service that is closely related to the life of inhabitants such as crime prevention, patrol, traffic crackdown, etc. as well as public health, sanitation and environmental control which are being performed by autonomous organization at present. However some expected controversial items may be summarized in the following 3 points on the premise of accepting the program of government. First, the point at issue related to the basic function of police. The basic function of police is generally understood as order keeping function such as anterior and preventive job and law enforcing function such as posterior and suppressing job. By the way, the program of government does not endow the autonomous police with investigation right for general crime, thereby raising the controversy that our autonomous police is nothing but the assistant of police. Furthermore, the present national police also expresses its dissatisfaction to the transfer of authority. Second, the issue of balance of security service between self-governing bodies may be raised. The security environment is different between self-governing bodies and thus demand of security is different. Therefore, the security service of autonomous police will reveal difference in qualitative aspect for each self-governing body. Moreover, it can be easily anticipated that the quality of security service may be different as per the financial independence degree. Third, the point at issue anticipated with the operation funded by the budget of self-governing body. As autonomous police is operated by the budget of self-governing body, the following problems may be raised; (1) since police administration is subordinated to general administration, the concentration may be weakened (2) the cooperation between policy agencies may be impeded (3) owing to the difficult in possessing spare police, the mobility of police may be somewhat reduced.