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Permalink Reply by Wally Nes on June 27, 2011 at 10:39am

I don't know enough about the situation to make a solid judgement, but it seems very unlikely this is a justifiable situation.

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Permalink Reply by chance leland barkley on June 27, 2011 at 4:12pm

Police don't have time to handle these disputes?  More likely they don't want the direct backlash.  If Korea actually cleaned up its act and enforced the rule of law then these problems wouldn't exist or at least would be marginal.  Corruption and benevolence hold this country back.

 

PS I have traveled a lot and save for Argentina I have never seen police officers do so little as they do here

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Permalink Reply by Lara Tosh on June 27, 2011 at 5:32pm

...if the vendors are violating civil law, and the government has decided to start enforcing civil law, then the govt's going to need to either change the job description of cops -or create another "enforcement body".

The cops ARE busy (dealing with drunks & alcohol-related stuff, crazy people, hookers, pimps, and domestic violence ...and fraud, theft, rape, etc.) ...for the record, the insadong / jongno-3-ga area is condered a cop's nightmare (the amount of nut-cases & drunks is worse on a quiet day than itaewon on a saturday night) -youngsan is also another "not fun" place to be for a cop.

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Permalink Reply by chance leland barkley on June 27, 2011 at 5:44pm

Mabye they need more police then?  I'm sure there are many police officers that do work very hard.  However, the ones I've seen are pitiful.  I saw two fights last year that started and went on unnecessarily because police did nothing.  They let things escalate and then watched.  I wish I would have videoed it.  Also, my girlfriend was driven around (a very kind gesture) for over 3 hours on errands by an officer at which the he asked her out to dinner on his shift time!!

Shame on the government for hiring contracted thugs.  Raise taxes and hire more officers to properly enforce the laws you've made.  Don't just pass the buck

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Permalink Reply by Lara Tosh on June 27, 2011 at 6:16pm

I know what you mean (re: cops not doing their job) -I guess the force here consists of all sorts ...and add to that the embarrassingly low salary (a 22-yr-old college graduate in their first year here, working at a hackwon with no overtime makes more than a sergeant with over 10 years experience -and works about half the hours) & the result is usually that only those who care about what they're doing actually do their job to the best of their ability.

Regardless, the Korean government hiring thugs to enforce civil law certainly doesn't reflect very well on the country's image.

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Permalink Reply by chance leland barkley on June 27, 2011 at 6:56pm

Your husband is an officer right?

 

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Permalink Reply by Lara Tosh on June 27, 2011 at 7:39pm

Yep ...and those hired thugs also get paid more per day than he does (according to that article).

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Permalink Reply by Daniel on June 29, 2011 at 2:08am

Lara: Same thing in Canada and America: Soldiers make much less than than those outfits ie Black...   that were prevalent in Iraq.

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Permalink Reply by chance leland barkley on June 29, 2011 at 10:52am

The difference is soldiers and police in Canada at least, make higher wages than the average GDP per capita.  Those private ones in IRAQ pull in six figures.

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Permalink Reply by Daniel on June 29, 2011 at 1:01pm

Police yeah, soldiers not so sure...  I do remember soldiers at the lower levels with families in Edmonton having to go to the food bank to make ends meet....

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Permalink Reply by Michael Langley on June 28, 2011 at 8:03am

I knew that there were these kinds of individuals but I never knew they were sanctioned outright by the police--or hired by the police. This is surely shocking and helps to explain why there can be such big demonstrations in Korea. This proves that Korean democracy is not quite up to par yet with Western democracies.

If the zoning in an area has been rezoned to exclude the street vendors, why not simply have the police remove them in an orderly fashion, or, cordon off the area somehow so that customers cannot access the vendors? Anything is preferable to dictatorship style antics, which this is because the allowing of it comes straight from the top.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Lara Tosh on June 28, 2011 at 8:49am

I checked last night, the "errand guys" aren't sanctioned by the police. The insadong incident is likely the first time the government has been caught sending in thugs.

I agree (re: using cops). I also found out last night that the cops actually ARE used to remove street vendors in other jurisdictions. Cops also regularly accompany Gu & tax office officials a few times a month to provide "back-up" in cracking down on stuff like unpaid taxes & tickets / fines & business license registration issues.

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