The Korea Herald

지나쌤

Lack of police officers on streets

By Bak Se-hwan

Published : Oct. 21, 2016 - 15:14

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In South Korea, there were 221 police officers per 100,000 citizens as of July -- or one police officer per every 452 citizens, the National Police Agency said Friday.

The coverage is quite low in comparison to other advanced nations. In Germany, each law enforcement officer guarded 305 citizens in July, about 1.5 times less the coverage in South Korea.

Paris had 322 citizens per each police officer during the same month, followed by London with 421 citizens and the US with 427.

 
(Herald DB) (Herald DB)

Frontline officers stationed at a local police department take on an even greater workload, with each handling 1,100 people, according to the agency.

The number of 112 services calls, equivalent to 911 in the US, on the other hand, marked around 20 million last year alone, which translates into more than 52,000 calls a day.

That makes for an average of 13.4 calls a day to each of 3,898 emergency services operators across the country.

Among reports received, around 10.7 million reports lead to the dispatch of police officers last year – about 29,368 a day.

The agency also added that in 2015, around 4.9 officers were hospitalized per day, and more than one officer died per month while on duty.

By Bak Se-hwan (sh@heraldcorp.com)