By Lee Hyo-sik
Staff reporter
A police station chief’s open revolt against his boss has laid bare the excessive competition to round up more criminals. This merit-based personnel management is seen as the key factor behind officers’ reliance on torturing suspects and other extreme measures.
The chief of Seoul Gangbuk Police Station Chae Soo-chang said Monday that his boss, Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Commissioner Jo Hyun-oh, has been putting too much pressure on officers to apprehend as many criminals as they can, adding the performance-based system has driven some police officers to use torture to extract confessions from suspects.
“Torturing suspects is not a problem of a few individuals at Yangcheon Police Station. But this is a result of the current police leadership’s extreme pressure on police officers to compete and perform beyond their means and abilities. If these leaders remain in the top posts, the same problem will continue to occur in the future,” Chae said in a hurriedly arranged press conference.
His revolt sent a shockwave through police circles where seniority and absolute obedience to superiors are the norm.
He then called on Commissioner Jo to resign from his post by assuming the responsibility for the torture scandal. Chae also tendered his resignation from his position.
Four officers at Yangcheon Police Station in western Seoul were arrested last week for allegedly beating and torturing 22 criminal suspects from August last year through March this year in a bid to force them to confess to their crimes.
The allegation of torture against criminal suspects by police officers came to the surface when the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) filed a complaint with the prosecution, claiming that five police officers employed inhumane methods to coerce confessions from suspects.
Immediately after Chae’s press conference, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency dismissed him from his post, rather than accept his resignation, saying that he damaged the reputation of the police force.
The agency refuted Chae’s claim, arguing its performance-based payment system has been widely adopted by other state-run institutions.
“To better protect the lives and property of all citizens, it is necessary to introduce the merit-based payment and evaluation scheme. Those who perform better should receive higher salaries and an advantage in performance assessment,” it said in a statement.
Many high-ranking police officials view the performance-oriented system positively. One police station chief in Seoul said it is essential to promote competition among police officers to some extent to achieve better results, saying Chae’s insubordination does more harm than good to the police force.
But many low-and mid-ranking officials say that after the introduction of the performance-based scheme, it has become harder to investigate criminal cases jointly with other officers because of individual evaluations.
A detective at the homicide division of a Seoul police station said it is difficult for him to rest on weekends in order to meet his performance requirements. “We should focus on preventing crimes, not apprehending criminals. But we are forced to catch as many criminals as we can to score highly on the performance evaluation.”