By Choi Sung-jin
The number of police officers who killed themselves over the past five years is larger than those who died in the line of duty.
According to data the National Police Agency sent to Rep. Park Nam-choon of the opposition Minjoo Party of Korea, 93 police officers committed suicide between 2012 and this past July, compared with 69 officers who died working.
Among the causes of suicide, depression was the most frequent with 24 cases, followed by family feuds (23), despondence from illness (13), economic problems and diseases (10 each), career problems (seven), love troubles and unknown causes (three each).
Among those who died on the job, disease accounted for the largest share of 68 percent (47 cases), followed by traffic accidents (16), safety accidents (four) and attacks by thugs (two).
The health of night-duty officers at police boxes was not good, either, reflecting the need to work out fundamental countermeasures, the report showed.
About 75,000 policemen and policewomen, or 70 percent of the total, are engaged in night work, such as foot patrols, handling drunken people and traffic enforcement.
The National Policy Agency selected 13,907 relatively older ones among night-shift officers and did special health checks last year. They revealed only 6,437 officers, or 45 percent, had no health problems while the other 55 percent either had a disease or showed such possibilities, according to the data.
"If police officers, whose duty is to protect the lives and property of the public, are not healthy, the people cannot be properly protected, either," Rep. Park said. "The government needs to grasp job-related problems facing these officers and come up with fundamental solutions to improve their treatment."
The number of police officers who killed themselves over the past five years is larger than those who died in the line of duty.
According to data the National Police Agency sent to Rep. Park Nam-choon of the opposition Minjoo Party of Korea, 93 police officers committed suicide between 2012 and this past July, compared with 69 officers who died working.
Among the causes of suicide, depression was the most frequent with 24 cases, followed by family feuds (23), despondence from illness (13), economic problems and diseases (10 each), career problems (seven), love troubles and unknown causes (three each).
Among those who died on the job, disease accounted for the largest share of 68 percent (47 cases), followed by traffic accidents (16), safety accidents (four) and attacks by thugs (two).
The health of night-duty officers at police boxes was not good, either, reflecting the need to work out fundamental countermeasures, the report showed.
About 75,000 policemen and policewomen, or 70 percent of the total, are engaged in night work, such as foot patrols, handling drunken people and traffic enforcement.
The National Policy Agency selected 13,907 relatively older ones among night-shift officers and did special health checks last year. They revealed only 6,437 officers, or 45 percent, had no health problems while the other 55 percent either had a disease or showed such possibilities, according to the data.
"If police officers, whose duty is to protect the lives and property of the public, are not healthy, the people cannot be properly protected, either," Rep. Park said. "The government needs to grasp job-related problems facing these officers and come up with fundamental solutions to improve their treatment."
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