Invest1 publisher2 min readPublished
About 100 of the 1,962 staff at Korea's new serious crimes agency are prosecutors
Korea's Serious Crimes Investigation Agency took over the prosecution's direct investigative powers with 1,962 of 2,874 posts filled and about 100 prosecutors. Its recruitment drives target police officers, many of whom weighed the move and have since backed off.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Its KICS case system is not properly installed, so complaints and investigative records are handwritten, and for now it must borrow the police-run system.
- Under the new split, the agency investigates while a separate Public Prosecution Agency reviews its cases and handles indictments, an arrangement that has not yet been tested.
- The agency says it will close the staffing gap by hiring outside specialists, including police officers, lawyers and accountants.
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Why it matters
- constraint With prosecutors at about 5% of filled posts, roughly 100 people set the limit on how many investigations the agency can run until new investigators arrive.
- cost Senior police investigators would have to give up rank to join, so the officers most willing to move are likely to be those whose police promotions had already stalled.
- exposure Every case the agency opens before its own KICS is built depends on a system run by the police, the body it competes with for investigative jurisdiction.
About 100 prosecutors on a staff of 1,962 is roughly 5% [3]. Against the 2,874 posts the agency is authorized to fill, it is 3.5% [4]. Seoul Economic Daily describes the prosecutors as the staff who must actually carry out investigations [3]. For each of them there are roughly 19 other employees [5]. At a fill rate of about 68% [2], 912 posts are still open [1].
The recruiting terms are the puzzle. A police senior superintendent may command a local station or a division at the National Police Agency [12]. At the new agency, that officer would be appointed at Grade 4, the level of a prosecutor with less than 10 years of service [12]. Superintendents, who head divisions at local stations and sections at metropolitan and provincial agencies, would be treated as rank-and-file [13]. According to the paper, the officers most drawn to the move were investigative-track inspectors and senior inspectors, along with superintendents whose chances of making senior superintendent were in doubt [6]. The special recruitment drives are aimed at police officers and other frontline investigators [4].
Jeon Jong-min, the deputy commissioner acting as head, said at the opening ceremony that the agency would "firmly uphold political neutrality and investigative independence" [8]. The precedent raised in the Seoul Economic Daily report is the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, which gained momentum under the Moon Jae-in administration and was shaken as soon as the next government took office [11]. The paper adds that there is no guarantee the new agency's standing, staffing and budget will stay where they are now [11].
The headcount could mislead in a few ways. The agency plans to hire lawyers and accountants as well as police [5]. If those hires come faster and work as investigators, the prosecutor count will understate capacity within months. The agency could also revise its rank-and-experience criteria to win back wavering officers. Or political support could thin before the posts are filled, as it did for the anti-corruption office.
I think the near-term ceiling is set by the roughly 100 prosecutors, and every case they finish still goes to the Public Prosecution Agency for review [10]. The report does not say how many cases the agency took over or how many involve corporate or financial crime, so a forecast that large financial probes will stall rests on headcount alone. The view is wrong if the recruitment drives fill most of the 912 open posts with investigators by year-end. It is also wrong if referrals to the Public Prosecution Agency arrive faster than 100 prosecutors could produce them.
What to watch
- The results of the special recruitment drives, measured against the 912 open posts and split by how many hires work as investigators.
- Whether the agency gets an inaugural commissioner and revises the rank-and-experience criteria that place a police station chief at Grade 4.
- The pace of the first case referrals to the Public Prosecution Agency, and when the agency switches from the police-run KICS to its own system.