Stop and search: huge increase in police portable background checks

Use of portable background check devices by police

Crime rates are not on the rise, suggesting police checks are more of an exercise in police convenience and public intimidation

A man surnamed Kim, 32, was waiting for a friend on Seoul’s Jongno 3-ga avenue earlier this month when a police officer stopped him to ask for identification. The startled Kim handed over his ID and asked what it was about. “You were loitering around here for a while, and we just wanted to check up,” the officer said. After doing a background check on Kim, the officer thanked him and disappeared.

“I just handed over my ID without thinking,” Kim recalled. “After the officer had left, it occurred to me: this was a ‘questioning of a suspicious person.’ I was really angry. It seemed like they were treating me like a criminal without identifying themselves.”

Once in decline, cases of police stopping “suspicious persons” for questioning have made a major comeback under the Park Geun-hye administration, doubling each year since 2013. Figures on the use of portable background check devices over the past five years, which the Hankyoreh received on Jan. 11 after an information disclosure request to the National Police Agency, showed they were used for a total of 28,208,383 searches last year on passing individuals or vehicles. The amount is nearly double the 15,630,880 recorded in 2012, the last year of the Lee Myung-bak administration.

Random searches of citizens have shown an especially sharp rise. Background checks with portable devices rose from 3,238,918 in 2012 to 6,213,650 in 2013 and 11,807,970 in 2014 - nearly doubling each year. Statistically, roughly one in four adults has been subjected to one. The use of the devices to check on vehicles has also risen from 12,391,962 cases in 2012 to 16,400,413 last year.

The Act on the Performance of Duties by Police Officers defines “Police Questioning” by stipulating that “A police officer, by using reasonable judgment from a suspicious act or surrounding circumstances, may stop and ask a person questions when he has a considerable reason to suspect that the person has committed or is about to commit a crime.” Citizens have the right to refuse to answer and to say no if asked to go with the police officer - but many find it difficult to assert these rights when faced with a surprise request from the police.

In 2010, portable background check devices were used roughly 72,020,000 times: 16,027,707 times for personal questioning cases and 55,997,503 for vehicle checks. Human rights groups responded with a campaign against the questioning practices, while the National Human Rights Commission of Korea acknowledged the potential for human rights infringements. By 2012, the number was down to 15,630,000 cases, or about one-fifth its previous levels. The fluctuations could suggest the questioning was more a measure for police convenience than a reflection of real need.

Experts said the real reason for the sharp rise in questioning since Park took office is a desire to crack down on demonstrations in the first few years of the administration.

“An especially large number of people were stopped for questioning in the area around the Blue House after the sinking of the Sewol ferry [in April, 2014],” said Lee Ho-joong, a professor of law at Sogang University. “In many cases, the questionings were performed to scare people off and prevent them from taking part in large demonstrations. The police have talked about the ‘crime prevention effect,’ but there doesn’t appear to be much of one.”

Indeed, the ratio of arrests of wanted criminals with suspended cases out of all background check using the portable devices has dropped yearly from 2.4% in 2012 to 1.5% in 2013 and 0.75% last year.

The National Police Agency said the background check statistics “include not only people stopped for questioning, but also checks on traffic violations, violations of basic order, and pursuit of suspects in criminal cases.”

　

By Seo Young-ji, staff reporter

　

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