Public backlash over shoddy police work prompts ruling party to restore powers at new agency
'Band-aid fix that admits past mistake,' critics say
![People Power Party members of the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee hold up placards and protest to committee chairman Kim Young-jin on Tuesday against the passage of an amendment to the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Act that would grant the agency supplementary and re-investigation powers over seven categories of crimes targeting vulnerable groups. [Yonhap]](https://wimg.heraldcorp.com/news/cms/2026/09/17/news-p.v1.20260915.c5b3de0c2245427989218de03828b6f4_P1.png)
The Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, set to launch Oct. 2, may be given authority to supplement or reopen police investigations into certain everyday crimes — not just serious offenses — as public criticism of shoddy police work mounts. Critics say the move contradicts the very reform that abolished such oversight powers in the first place.
An amendment to the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Act, pushed through the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee on Tuesday by the Democratic Party of Korea, would grant the agency supplementary and re-investigation powers over seven categories of crimes targeting vulnerable groups: child abuse, domestic violence, sex crimes, child sex crimes, stalking, abuse of people with disabilities, and elder abuse.
If the amendment clears a full plenary vote, cases in those seven categories that police decline to refer would still be forwarded to the agency for review — creating a de facto universal referral system. The agency, originally designed to handle only serious crimes, would effectively gain after-the-fact oversight of police investigations into a range of ordinary offenses.
The Democratic Party has long championed a restructuring of the criminal justice system — abolishing the Prosecution Service and replacing it with the new agency and a separate indictment office — under the principle that police investigate and prosecutors prosecute. The Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Act, finalized at a Cabinet meeting in March, was built around that principle, designating the agency as a specialist body for serious crimes while leaving police in charge of investigations broadly.
But a string of recent cases — including allegations that police buried or bungled the investigation into Jang Yun-gi, convicted of murdering a high school student in Gwangju, and a separate missing-persons case in Jeju — fueled growing concern about a structure that leaves most investigative work to police alone. The ruling party responded by proposing to allow the agency to conduct supplementary and re-investigations, but only for the seven categories of crimes targeting vulnerable groups.
Critics call it patchwork legislation that grafts an exception onto an agency purpose-built for major crimes, undermining its original design.
"This amendment would never have been pursued had the Jang Yun-gi case or the Jeju missing-persons case not come to light," said Oh Yun-seong, a professor of police administration at Soonchunhyang University. "Now that problems have emerged, they are reaching for an ad hoc fix that contradicts the original intent."
A lawyer in Seocho said the move amounted to a tacit admission of error. "Restoring supplementary investigation powers in response to criticism of shoddy police work is the Democratic Party conceding that such powers do improve the thoroughness of investigations," the lawyer said. "It is tantamount to confessing that abolishing them was a mistake."
The Democratic Party maintains that granting the agency supplementary investigation powers does not conflict with the principles of the criminal justice overhaul. A ruling-party official said the launch of the agency and the new indictment office was significant because it achieved the overarching goal of separating investigation from prosecution. "It is a logical leap to argue that allowing the agency — which has no power to indict — to conduct supplementary investigations somehow diminishes the prosecution reform," the official said.
Police above the new agency? Officers push back as supplementary powers advance
'Just a new nameplate on the same old prosecutors,' critics inside force say
Within the police force, there is growing resentment that granting the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency supplementary investigation powers would leave the relationship between police and the agency little different from the old dynamic between police and prosecutors.
"If the agency can conduct supplementary or re-investigations even into ordinary crimes, what was the point of abolishing the Prosecution Service?" one police official said. "Police have effectively become a subcontractor for the agency." Another official said that if the agency takes on supplementary investigations, "nothing has really changed except that prosecutors have moved from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Interior and Safety."
Concerns about an "asymmetric relationship" between police and the agency were also raised at a background briefing held at the Korean National Police Agency headquarters in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, on Sept. 9. A police agency official said the two bodies' investigative jurisdictions overlap, but the agency has been given investigative priority.
Under police investigation rules taking effect next month, police must immediately notify the agency upon becoming aware of a crime within its jurisdiction. The agency may demand that police transfer any serious-crime case already under investigation. It may also refer to police any complaint or accusation it receives that it deems minor enough for police to handle, rather than investigating the matter itself.
"The agency can take cases from police or hand cases to police, but police cannot do the reverse," a police agency official said. "The agency gets to be selective about what it investigates, while police must investigate every case that comes in." The official added, "Police are also subject to oversight by the agency."
arin@heraldcorp.com
