Police Release Quarterly Crime Statistics for the First Time, Reviewing Crime Types in Q3

'Fraud' Accounts for Over 20% of Total Crimes
Violent Crime Clearance Rate at 96.4%... Offenders Will Be Caught

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-ju] Among various crimes that occurred domestically in the third quarter of this year, 'fraud' was found to be the most frequently occurring single crime. This indicates that crimes directly threatening the livelihoods of ordinary people are rampant.

The National Police Agency recently released the "2021 Third Quarter Crime Occurrence and Arrest Status." This is the first time the police have compiled and disclosed ad hoc statistics to the public. Previously, only the "Police Crime Statistics" were released once every August each year, but this change reflects opinions that it was difficult to promptly grasp the latest crime trends.

The ad hoc statistics disclosed by the police include the number of crimes, arrests, and arrestees by crime type and by metropolitan/provincial police agency. The total number of crimes that occurred in the third quarter of this year was 370,089, of which 299,312 cases (80.9%) were solved. The total number of arrestees was 364,475.

By crime type, 'violent crimes' such as murder, robbery, rape, and arson totaled 6,355 cases. Specifically, there were 168 murders with 160 arrests, 144 robberies with 142 arrests, 5,774 cases of rape and sexual assault with 5,605 arrests, and 249 arson cases with 223 arrests. The arrest rate for violent crimes within the quarter reached 96.4%. It can be said that committing such crimes results in immediate arrest.

The most concerning part is fraud crimes. Fraud crimes, excluding those under special laws, were the most frequent among criminal law offenses, totaling 76,396 cases. This means that 20% of all crimes occurring in the third quarter were fraud-related. Among these, 47,716 cases were solved, resulting in an arrest rate of 62.5%. Considering that fraud investigations typically require a certain period, this arrest rate is not poor. However, it suggests the need to strengthen responses to the rapidly increasing fraud crimes.

Crimes threatening the livelihoods of ordinary people, such as theft and assault, also accounted for a significant portion. Theft was the second most frequent single crime after fraud, with 43,804 cases. Among violent crimes, assault was the most frequent with 30,728 cases, followed by property damage with 14,474 cases, injury with 7,652 cases, and threats with 5,735 cases. Additionally, morality crimes such as prostitution, illegal game rooms, and gambling totaled 1,960 cases. By category, morality crimes were 856 cases and gambling 1,104 cases.

The police plan to post quarterly ad hoc statistics on their website in PDF format every January, April, July, and October. However, the police explained that the quarterly ad hoc statistics may differ in some classifications from the annual crime statistics and may be supplemented later, so direct comparison with annual statistics is difficult.

Along with this, the police plan to improve the outdated crime statistics system next year. Through this, they aim to enhance error prevention functions during data entry and advanced analysis functions between items to improve the accuracy of statistics and user convenience. They also plan to update item values such as the relationship between suspects and victims, victim age, crime occurrence location, and stolen items to reflect the latest crime characteristics and provide highly useful statistics.

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