1.62 Million Cases Reported to the National Police Agency Last Year
Anti-Corruption Commission Begins Discussions on System Improvement
Experts Say "Administrative Waste Must Be Prevented"
Every year, the police are struggling as complaints through the National Sinmungo increase. There are concerns that administrative resources are being wasted due to malicious complaints, such as hundreds of reports of the same content.
The civil complaint application screen on the 국민신문고 (People's Petition) website operated by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission. Applications can be submitted without any specific form or restrictions.
According to the National Police Agency on the 15th, complaints to the National Police Agency via the National Sinmungo were recorded as 1.21 million in 2021, 1.35 million in 2022, and 1.62 million in 2023. Even though traffic violation complaints and others have been separately counted since this year, 460,000 cases were received from January to October.
A police official said, "More than half of all complaints submitted to government ministries through the National Sinmungo are assigned to the National Police Agency," adding, "It would be good if they are used appropriately, like submitting a complaint report, but there are quite a few cases where malicious complaints are submitted with ill intent." Another police official revealed, "Sometimes hundreds of cases are registered, and when we try to contact them for case intake, they do not answer," and added, "Once received, we have to check all cases no matter what, so even a small amount of effort is unavoidable, which makes it feel inefficient."
The National Sinmungo is an online public participation portal operated by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, allowing citizens to file complaints or make proposals. Complaints submitted through the National Sinmungo have no special format or restrictions; as long as users log in to the website, they can apply with just one line without detailed explanations. The received complaints are transferred to the relevant institution by the Commission according to the content. Of course, if multiple identical complaints are received, they can be merged and processed as one, and cases with more than two responses can be closed immediately.
However, the assigned department must directly verify and classify the complaints and manage all processes from response to closure. A Commission official explained, "Currently, there are no separate restrictions on complaint submissions, but we agree with the opinion that restrictions are needed for malicious complaints or repeated identical content," adding, "We will discuss improvements to enable public officials to perform their duties more efficiently."
Experts emphasize the need for improvements to prevent administrative resource waste. Kim Young-sik, a professor in the Department of Police Administration at Seowon University, said, "Since the volume of complaints through the National Sinmungo is so large, the Commission only transfers them to the relevant ministries, but if they keep passing the responsibility like that, administrative waste will inevitably worsen," and added, "It should be improved so that complaints can be accepted only after a certain review, such as whether minimum requirements are met and whether the complaint is specific."
Lee Geon-su, a professor in the Department of Police Administration at Baekseok University, said, "It is difficult to restrict complaint reporting itself, so if it is judged to be malicious, post-facto measures are necessary," and added, "In cases where there are elements of obstructing work, criminal punishment such as detention for obstruction of official duties should be used to prevent waste of administrative and public authority resources."
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