Seoul Cheong - Narcotics Control Headquarters Sign MOU to Establish Drug Crime Response System

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced on the 4th that it has signed a business agreement with the Korea Anti-Drug Movement Headquarters to establish a response system for drug-related crimes.

Through this agreement, the two organizations will jointly produce educational materials for drug crime prevention and carry out prevention and publicity activities targeting elementary, middle, and high school students. Additionally, the police agreed to connect drug offenders discovered during investigations, including youth addicted to drugs, to the Anti-Drug Movement Headquarters for treatment and counseling. Furthermore, the two organizations agreed to support education to enhance the expertise of SPOs and drug crime investigators and to proactively respond through mutual information sharing when recognizing trends in new types of drug crimes and major methods.

According to the police, the number of drug offenders arrested last year was 2,590, an increase compared to 2,366 in 2019, two years prior. In particular, youth drug offenders rose by 37.5% compared to the previous year, and the proportion of offenders in their teens and twenties showed a clear upward trend, accounting for 45.3% of the total. Among them, first-time offenders accounted for 1,962 out of 2,590, reaching 75.8%. The police analyzed that the causes of this increasing trend include "the activation of non-face-to-face transactions such as SNS and virtual assets, as well as the misuse and abuse of drugs in daily life."

This business agreement was promoted based on the judgment that the existing ‘punishment-focused, retrospective police activities’ through crackdowns and investigations alone have limitations in effectively responding to changes in drug crimes, and aims to establish a crime response system through inter-agency cooperation. In particular, the police judged that prevention and recidivism prevention activities for drug crimes, which have a high recidivism rate, were insufficient. The police stated, "To fundamentally solve the problem, we have established a three-dimensional response system of ‘prevention-crackdown-treatment’ so that existing crackdowns and investigations, along with proactive prevention activities and treatment and counseling for recidivism prevention, can proceed organically."

After the agreement, Kim Kwang-ho, Commissioner of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, said, "Drug crimes have high addiction and recidivism rates," and added, "Alongside crackdowns and investigations, we plan to respond in a three-dimensional and comprehensive manner through active cooperation with the Korea Anti-Drug Movement Headquarters and others to ensure prevention, treatment, and counseling are organically connected." Jang Jae-in, Director of the Korea Anti-Drug Movement Headquarters, said, "We hope that this business agreement with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency will help reduce drug addiction problems and crime rates among youth and young adults."

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