Why is school bullying worsening in Korea despite prevention steps?

School bullying in Korea has never disappeared. Although there are local school violence prevention committees run by education offices, victims and bullies do not trust the organizations and often take their decisions to court. While legal disputes rage on for months, the bullying continues. Gettyimagesbank

Bullying prevention committees need major overhaul to root out violence

By Ko Dong-hwan

In the Korean Netflix series, "The Glory," an elementary school teacher seeks vengeance against her former bullies who had targeted her when she was young. The thriller, which achieved phenomenal ratings thanks to its vengeful heroine played by hallyu star Song Hye-kyo, is expected to release its second season in March.

Part of its popularity is derived from the catharsis Song brings by getting revenge for what she had to endure, such as having her bare skin seared by a hair straightener and being scratched in the chest with a safety pin.

The sadistic torture portrayed in the series is based on a true story from a girls' middle school in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, in 2006. Bullies in the third grade at the school had also messed up the victim's hair and scratched her hands so badly they later became swollen. The school put the bullies on a watch list to prevent future offenses and took no further action. The victim, even after 17 years, still remains traumatized.

The Special Act on School Violence Prevention was introduced in Korea in 2004, which led to the launch of committees in grade schools across the country to monitor bullying. Since then, such acts of violence have been managed, at least nominally, by school authorities.

But the problem remains rampant.

Some victims continue to take their own lives and assailants keep getting away, without receiving punishment that matches their cruelty. Victims say school violence prevention committees, responsible for assessing the degree of seriousness in each case and meting out punishment to perpetrators, cannot be trusted.

The apparent ineptitude of the prevention committees has recently stirred the public once again. Chung Sun-sin, a prosecutor-turned-lawyer who was recommended as the new chief of the National Office of Investigation in charge of commanding police investigation teams nationwide, stepped down only a day after being appointed on Feb. 24 following news reports that his son used to bully his dormitory roommate in 2017 while attending a private high school.

The bigger problem was that after his son had been charged by the school's bullying prevention committee and ordered to be transferred to a different school, Chung, 57, refused to admit the boy's misconduct and appealed to a Gangwon provincial school mitigation commission. He then dragged the case all the way up to the Supreme Court, where he lost the following year.

Song Hye-kyo, right, as Moon Dong-eun in Netflix series "The Glory," recounts her past when she was bullied in school and seeks vengeance on her former assailants. Courtesy of Netflix

Chung's repeated appeals, challenging the school committee's decision that took into account his son's consistent verbal abuse, reflect his intention to undermine the committee's decision. National Police Agency Commissioner General Yoon Hee-keun, who had recommended him to the Ministry of Justice, and Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon, said they were unaware of Chung's controversial past.

After Chung stepped down, President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered the education ministry to resolve school violence immediately. "School bullying should be rooted out from all schools," he said. The education ministry said it will come up with a plan to do so within this month.

But the order came only after the prosecutor general-turned-president was lambasted for his administration's failure to vet key figures appointed across the central government which is dominated by former prosecutors.

Failing system

One of the biggest problems making the school violence prevention committees in Korea ineffective is that most of the constituting members of the groups have no legal expertise.

Almost half of the committees' members are students' parents. Teachers and government officials from local offices of education are also on the committees. In each committee usually with around 10 members, only two or three are legal experts like lawyers.

"Many of the legal professionals don't even attend the committee meetings often because it is an unpaid position," Park Keun-byeong, president of Seoul School Teachers' Union, told The Korea Times. "They are usually busy with their day jobs. Not to mention there are so few of them in each committee."

Then-prosecutor Chung Sun-sin speaks during a press conference at Incheon District Prosecutors' Office to say he is joining the investigation into the Sewol ferry disaster, in this April 2014 photo. Chung, who was appointed on Feb. 24 to lead the National Office of Investigation in charge of commanding police investigation forces, resigned after just one day. It has been found he had helped his son avoid punishment for bullying his dorm-mate in high school. Yonhap

All Seoul schools used to have bullying prevention committees. But there were growing concerns that the committees were too unprofessional due to a lack of legal experts.

The committees also took many teachers away from their teaching duties by involving them in resolving reported cases of school bullying. In 2021, the Ministry of Education moved all the committees to different local branches of education offices in each metropolitan city. In the capital, there are 11 committees under the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. Throughout the country, there are 176 committees. As of 2021, the total members of those committees stood at 5,800.

Since the committees' relocation, victims of school bullying are supposed to report such acts to their school, which handles the matter internally. If the case proves too big to handle, the school reports it to one of the prevention committees.

Another problem with the committees is that their decisions lack legal authority, a weakness that bullies and their guardians often take advantage of by objecting to the decisions and taking the matter to court.

Their strategy: prolong the dispute long enough to prevent their history of bullying from being added in their school records, so it will not interfere with their college entrance process. It is not even difficult nowadays to find online ads for lawyers supporting bullies in legal disputes and helping them receive the minimum level of punishment ― or get away with it.

"Bullies are extremely sensitive over their bullying showing up in their school records," Park said. "They drag the case out until it's time for them to graduate and go to a post-secondary school, which means kissing their wrongdoings goodbye. I have seen an increasing number of bullies abusing the judicial system like that recently."

Park said that while a legal dispute is in progress, victims and aggressors, who are often classmates, remain together in the same classroom without getting separated, which adds to the torment of the victims.

"The education ministry has missed that loophole and isn't taking any action to close it," Park said.

There are police assigned to schools, with one officer responsible for over 12 schools on average. Before winning the presidential election last March, Yoon pledged to increase that enforcement pool. The National Police Agency (NPA) followed up by reporting to the president during his transition period that they will add 1,000 additional school police officers every year for the next five years. But the entire pool, 1,122 at the time of Yoon's inauguration last May, declined by 100 by the end of the year. The NPA also did not increase its budget this year to cover the school policing unit as promised.

"They don't really solve any school bullying cases," Park said. "They sometimes receive reports on bullying and then relay them to the school. That's pretty much it. They have a token presence."

One of the observers said the committees' authority is disregarded by bullies and their parents or guardians, because many people are not sure whether the organizations' decisions are legally binding or simply remonstrative. The critic said if the country wants to rein in school bullying with harsher punishment based on the committees' decisions, they should seat more legally qualified committee members.

Schools in the United States are known for taking a zero-tolerance stance on bullying and providing substantial support for victims. One in every four school teachers is a school counselor, according to reports, while cases deemed serious require intervention by the state government. Both schools and various levels of government there are adamant about punishing bullies for their actions.

In Japan, group bullying is more under control by schools while more serious cases involving violence are handled by police.