Gwangjin-gu Awarded Prime Minister's Award for Crime Prevention in South Korea

Crime Environment Diagnosis Academic Research Service, First Autonomous District to Establish 'Basic Crime Prevention Plan'... Application of Customized Local Safe Living (Crime Prevention) Design Projects

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Gwangjin-gu (Mayor Kim Seon-gap) received the Prime Minister's Commendation for overall excellence at the '2021 Korea Crime Prevention Awards' held on the 3rd.

The 'Korea Crime Prevention Awards' have been jointly hosted by the National Police Agency and JoongAng Ilbo since 2016, recognizing and awarding public institutions, social organizations, and companies with outstanding vision and achievements in building safe communities free from crime.

In response to the growing social demand for safer residential environments, Gwangjin-gu was honored as the only local government to receive the overall excellence award encompassing public institutions, social organizations, and private companies.

The district has actively and systematically worked to create a safer Gwangjin-gu by implementing initiatives such as ▲academic research on local crime status ▲establishing a basic plan for crime prevention and security environment construction ▲customized neighborhood safety (crime prevention) design projects by area ▲safety projects targeting women and single-person households.

Based on the 2019 academic research diagnosing local crime status, the district became the first autonomous district to establish a 'Basic Plan for Crime Prevention and Security Environment Construction,' laying the foundation for systematic and effective crime prevention projects.

In particular, to create a safe residential environment that residents can feel, customized crime prevention design projects reflecting the characteristics of each neighborhood have been promoted.

Gwangjin-gu has a lower proportion of apartments compared to other districts in Seoul and is densely populated with old detached and multi-family houses. Additionally, the area around local universities has a high proportion of single female households, and commercial areas such as Konkuk University’s Taste Street and Lamb Skewer Street have a large floating population and a high percentage of foreign residents.

Considering these environmental characteristics, customized projects have been implemented by neighborhood, including ▲Junggok 3-dong’s ‘Modeumjigi Safe Village’ ▲Gunja-dong’s ‘Bitdam-gil’ creation ▲Jayang 4-dong’s ‘Together Yet Separate’ for domestic and foreign residents ▲Hwayang-dong’s ‘Single-Person Household Safety SOS Zone’ establishment.

These projects are recognized as excellent models of crime prevention that break away from the conventional uniform CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) approach. CPTED is a design technique that builds a roadmap to create a safe environment by organizing the surroundings to prevent crime.

As a result of these efforts, Gwangjin-gu was identified as the district with the greatest reduction in the five major crimes (murder, robbery, sexual assault, theft, violence) in Seoul over the past five years (2015?2019) according to Seoul’s crime statistics analysis.

Furthermore, in the 2020 Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s regional safety index crime evaluation, Gwangjin-gu achieved a significant improvement from grade 4 to grade 3, the highest since the evaluation began in 2015.

Mayor Kim Seon-gap of Gwangjin-gu stated, “A safe environment free from crime is an important prerequisite for improving residents’ quality of life and securing urban competitiveness. However, responding to increasingly sophisticated and diverse crimes cannot rely solely on police-based crime prevention activities.”

He added, “Crime prevention projects that consider the unique socio-economic structures and contexts of each area are necessary. A neighborhood safe from crime is a fundamental condition supporting life, and Gwangjin-gu will continue to do its best to create a secure living environment for its residents.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.