10 Years Since the Introduction of 'School Police Officers' to Prevent School Violence... Seeking Improvements

Police Agency Research Service Contract

Police Agency building.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] Marking the 10th anniversary of the introduction of School Police Officers (SPOs), the police are launching a large-scale survey on the current status.

On the 27th, according to the police, the National Police Agency recently commissioned a research project on "Improvement Measures for the School Police Officer (SPO) System." The police plan to review the domestic school violence prevention, response, and linkage systems, diagnose the operation status of SPOs, and investigate domestic and international cases to derive comprehensive improvement measures.

School Police Officers were introduced in 2012 to eradicate school violence and have become a core police policy for responding to school violence. SPOs carry out overall response tasks related to school violence, including prevention activities, protecting victimized students, guiding offending students, collecting information on school violence groups, and preventing and dismantling the formation of such groups. The number of school violence arrests was 23,877 in 2012, the initial year of introduction, but decreased by more than 10,000 to 13,584 in 2019. From January to April this year, the number of arrests was 2,896, a 19.7% decrease compared to the same period last year.

The issue of manpower shortages among SPOs has not been resolved even after nearly 10 years. This year, the SPO quota is 1,122, but the actual number of officers is 1,020 (90.9%), failing to meet the quota. There is also a large regional disparity: Seoul (105.2%) and Jeonbuk (101.5%) met or exceeded their quotas, while 10 metropolitan local governments including Jeju (66.7%), Daejeon (75.0%), Daegu (77.6%), and Gyeongnam (79.5%) fell below the national average.

There remain doubts about whether effective prevention activities are possible due to the excessive workload of SPOs. Compared to the number of elementary, middle, and high schools and students nationwide as of this year, one SPO is responsible for an average of 11.8 schools. In terms of students per officer, the number is a staggering 5,269. As a result, even school prevention education activities are overwhelming. A SPO at a frontline police station said, "I feel rewarded and encouraged when students say they enjoy going to school thanks to their teachers," but added, "Since I am responsible for so many schools, I sometimes regret not being able to look into things more closely."

A police official stated, "Along with improvement plans for the overall SPO system, we plan to seek ways to quickly improve the system in cooperation with local governments, considering changes in the police organizational structure following the implementation of the autonomous police system."