The Korean Wave is in full swing. From pop music sensations BTS, to the Oscar-winning ‘Parasite’, South Korea’s cultural exports have truly entered the mainstream. But high-quality entertainment is far from all this booming nation has to offer: South Korea is starting to make a name for itself in police education.
Dubbed the ‘K-Cop’ Program in reference to the international success of K-Pop, the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) has been exporting policing knowledge and expertise to developing countries.
Once the most feared institution in the country, South Korea’s police force has now become a shining example of so-called ‘smart policing.’ As the country moves beyond a turbulent 20th century, during which the United States helped it emerge from the aftermath of the Korean War, the nation now finds itself in a position to help developing countries strengthen their law enforcement institutions.
So what is this K-Cop program all about? And how has South Korea’s police force come so far in such a short amount of time?
When the first free elections took place in 1987 as a result of a nationwide student-led movement, South Korea’s police vowed to earn the trust of its people. This was no easy task, as the events that led to the fall of the dictatorship had been sparked by the torture and subsequent death of a student at the hands of the police earlier that year.
It is this ability to reform itself and these ‘smart policing’ tactics, mainly in protest management, that the South Korean police force aims to teach overseas. For instance, heavy-handed responses have been replaced by measures aimed at preventing protests from even happening in the first place.
Police agents in their thousands now form blockades, and hundreds of buses are lined up for crowd control in the lead-up to a planned demostration. Checkpoints to stop vehicles bringing protesters are also put in place across certain key spots, and the operation of public transport is nearly brought to a halt.
Just last October, what would have been a large anti-government gathering was successfully prevented by the KNPA’s strategic fortification of Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square, where these kinds of events tend to take place.
Since 2005, when the program was first implemented, over 1,000 officers from 110 countries have received training and guidance by the KNPA. And in recent years, South Korea’s most recognised experts have traveled to the UAE and Oman to share their knowledge on protest handling with the local police.
The ‘K-Cop’ program also includes technical assistance to departments in developing countries. In Vietnam, for example, a Forensic Science Institute was recently established in Hanoi, its capital city, with the help of South Korean technology and expertise. In the Philippines, Korean police cars and motorbikes now patrol the streets of its major cities. Meanwhile, in Angola, the local emergency dispatch is heavily modeled on South Korea’s; and Guatemala has also ventured into smart policing with the establishment of a new cybercrime unit with guidance from the KNPA.
As well as helping these countries strengthen their law enforcement institutions, another key goal of the KNPA’s outreach initiative is to increase international cooperation in the combat against drug trafficking, terrorism, cybercrime and other forms of organized crime.
This was evidenced by the country’s hosting of the 2019 International Police Summit in Seoul, where police chiefs from 30 countries met to discuss the Global Partnership for Smart Policing. Moreover, South Korea is now spending $20 million on the ‘K-Cop’ Program per year, with the number of countries seeking help steadily increasing.
How South Korea’s K-Cops are Helping in the Fight Against International Crime
The Korean Wave is in full swing. From pop music sensations BTS, to the Oscar-winning ‘Parasite’, South Korea’s cultural exports have truly entered the mainstream. But high-quality entertainment is far from all this booming nation has to offer: South Korea is starting to make a name for itself in police education.