Serial killer Yoo Young-chul ate sagol gomtang and dakbokkeumtang... Police had '2 morning breads with soup'

Controversy Over Luxurious Meal Menu at Seoul Detention Center
Police Operate Using Staff Salaries Due to Lack of State Support

The December meal menu for Seoul Detention Center, where serial killers Yoo Young-chul and Kang Ho-soon are incarcerated, has been revealed. The well-organized and diverse three meals a day are causing outrage among netizens as they are compared to the recent controversy over poor meals at police stations.

On the 22nd, a post titled "December 2023 Seoul Detention Center Meal Menu" posted on an online community has been spreading and stirring controversy.

The menu, posted on the Ministry of Justice Correction Headquarters website on the 4th, is listed under the title "Inmate Food Items Menu" and includes three meals a day?breakfast, lunch, and dinner?with domestic napa cabbage kimchi, ox bone soup, aged kimchi cheonggukjang stew, and spicy braised chicken. Light meals such as morning bread, salad, and cereal are mainly provided for breakfast.

Vegetarian meals provided to volunteers at the detention center.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

This luxurious detention center meal service is being compared to the recently controversial poor meals at police stations, sparking debate.

On the 5th, an anonymous post titled "Breakfast menu at Seoul A Police Station" was uploaded on the office worker anonymous community Blind, showing a photo of a tray with two morning breads filled with potato salad, strawberry jam, and a bowl of soup, along with the caption "Price 5,000 won (meal ticket mandatory purchase), no missing food items, everyone eat breakfast and stay strong."

The post was later deleted, but it was revealed that all the contents of the post were true, causing shock.

A representative from the controversial A Police Station stated regarding the forced meal ticket purchase, "Currently, out of 31 police stations in the Seoul area, 28 operate their own cafeterias. Since the remaining profits are used to cover cafeteria staff wages and retirement benefits, employees voluntarily purchase at least 10 meal tickets worth about 5,000 won each per month with staff consent."

Meal tray from a police station recently embroiled in controversy over substandard meals.
[Photo by Online Community]

Unlike military bases and fire stations, which are operated with government support, police meals receive no separate support aside from the location. There is no legal basis for budget support. Compared to police stations, the National Police Agency is larger and has more personnel, so its situation is better, but police stations reportedly have to cover all labor costs, food material costs, and public utility fees with amounts deducted from the salaries of individual police officers who eat the meals.

Netizens who saw the Seoul Detention Center menu reacted negatively, saying things like, "Is it reasonable that those kinds of people eat better than socially disadvantaged people?", "Are the rights of criminals important but the rights of victims not?", and "Make them work and divide meals according to productivity levels."

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