Crimes committed by senior citizens are expected to increase this year mainly due to financial difficulties, despite the decrease in the overall crime rate, a police-affiliated think tank said Sunday.

The Police Science Institute, operated under the state-run Korean National Police University, predicted that Korea’s high elderly poverty rate would result in more crimes by underprivileged senior citizens aged 61 or older.

According to “Pensions at a Glance 2015” by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 49.5 percent of Koreans aged 65 or more are below the poverty line, by far the highest rate among OECD member states at more than quadruple the OECD average. The OECD defines the poverty line as half the median household income of the total population.

“As poverty of the senior citizens persists, the ‘subsistence crime’ ― committed by the underprivileged for the sheer purpose of survival ― will continue to grow. There is also a high possibility that the increase in crimes will lead to more violent cases, such as sex crimes,” the officials said.

The report pointed out that the surge in the crime rate was most notable among the age group of 61 or more last year. Criminal cases by the senior citizens accounted for 15.4 percent of the total population in 2014, marking a steep increase from 11.8 percent in 2011.

In terms of the number of criminals, 150,902 seniors were convicted of crimes in 2014, according to the National Police Agency. This marked a 35.4 percent jump from 111,453 in 2011.

The officials recommended that the elderly people should be given opportunities to participate in various government-funded programs, while the authorities should carry out campaigns to raise the awareness of the senior crimes.

But the report forecast the number of crimes in 2016 to be around 1.79 million, down from 1.85 million in the year before.

In addition, the PSI also predicted an increase in the number of crimes by foreigners, who account for 3.5 percent of the country’s 51.5 million population.

Crimes committed by foreigners went up from 22,543 in 2010 to 30,684 in 2014, and slid to 28,114 as of September 2015. The number of foreigners had also increased by roughly 700,000 since 2009 to mark 1.82 million.

The report pointed out that many foreign workers suffer from poor working conditions, being exempt from most welfare measures.

It added that while the situation calls for a “custom-fit” policy to counter the increase in crimes by foreigners, a special caution is needed against possible rise of xenophobia and contempt against foreign cultures in general.

A report by Kim Jung-hyu, a professor of American Studies at Keimyung University, extrapolated from his study of 800 immigrants in Korea that distortion, discrimination and mistreatment were among the biggest factors that pushed the foreigners to crime.

Among other crimes expected to surge this year were cases related to online feuds, as demonstrated by multiple libel cases involving an ultraconservative website “Ilbe” last year, which included an Ilbe member’s defamation of victims from 2014’s fatal sinking of ferry Sewol.

The PSI said that North Korea will likely attempt to sway public opinion during the general elections in April of this year, as it claimed that Pyongyang has schemed against certain parties and candidates in all major domestic elections

It said Pyongyang’s cyberoperations team would attempt to spread false rumors and propaganda against the major government policies such as labor reform and the government monopolizing publication of history textbooks, which has received heavy criticism from the opposition, labor circles and education circles across the country.


By Yoon Min-sik
(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)