Min Se-hee, a 26-year-old motivated to follow her late father's footsteps, was appointed a police lieutenant Thursday.
"My father's colleagues looked after me when I was young. I want to return the favor to the society," said Min. Her father died in a car accident during service in 2002 when she was only 3 years old. She added that, as a police officer, she wished to help underprivileged children.
Her 33-year-old brother, Senior Patrol Officer Min Seung-gi, also joined the force in 2016.
Lt. Min was among the 150 police officers newly appointed as police captains and lieutenants Thursday in a ceremony held at the Korean National Police University in Asan, South Chungcheong Province. This included 91 graduates of the police university, 51 candidates who passed the public recruitment process, and eight former lawyers and accountants.
South Korea has conducted a special hiring process for licensed legal experts, specifically lawyers since 2014 and certified public accountants, since 2019. Graduates of the KNPU start their careers as lieutenants, as do former licensed CPAs, while licensed lawyers begin as captains.
This graduation marks the first batch of students entering the school without the gender quota. The university previously allocated only 12 percent of its slots to women; the policy was abolished in 2021.
This year, 34 percent of the new hires (51) were women, the highest percentage in the country's history. The top-scoring candidates among both the KNPU graduates and the public recruits Thursday were women, Lt. Heo Ga-yeong and Lt. Kim Ga-yeong.
Fifty-six of the newly appointed KNPU graduates were men while 35 were women.
As of September 2024, 15.8 percent of the police officers nationwide were women.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
