President Lee Jae Myung speaks at a senior secretaries' meeting at Cheong Wa Dae on Thursday. [Yonhap]
President Lee Jae Myung speaks at a senior secretaries' meeting at Cheong Wa Dae on Thursday. [Yonhap]

President Lee Jae Myung has ordered an emergency inter-agency meeting, to be chaired by Policy Chief Ha Jun-kyung, to address indiscriminate violent crimes and relationship-based offenses, including the recent knife attack in Incheon.

Cheong Wa Dae announced Thursday that Ha will chair a "Crime Response Meeting on Random-Motive, Relationship-Based and Socially Vulnerable Victims" with participation from the Office for Government Policy Coordination, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Education and the Korean National Police Agency.

The meeting was convened in response to a string of violent crimes targeting socially vulnerable people, with the aim of drawing up measures to punish perpetrators and prevent future incidents.

Earlier, Lee visited the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency on Tuesday, shortly after the Incheon knife attack, to receive a briefing on the incident and issue instructions for a firm crackdown on violent crime.

The meeting is set to take up five agenda items: securing on-scene response capabilities with victim protection as the top priority, improving the electronic monitoring and supervision system, establishing comprehensive protection and support for crime victims, strengthening the mental health emergency response framework, and reinforcing violence prevention education in schools.

"Beyond victim-centered measures that restrict victims' daily lives, we need to prioritize strict sanctions against perpetrators along with supervision and prevention activities," Ha said. He added that Thursday's meeting would produce both short-term measures to stop violent crimes targeting vulnerable people and long-term strategies to suppress crime as much as possible, with findings to be reported to the president.


sang@heraldcorp.com