By Is it just me or does the Korean media just keep recycling the same story every month about the "rising foreigner crime rate" in Korea?:
Crimes committed by foreigners in South Korea have risen steadily in recent years due mainly to a surge in the number of illegal immigrants who are increasingly filling the vacuum in low-paid manual jobs, government figures showed Friday.
The number of crimes committed by foreigners here jumped from 12,821 in 2004 to 13,584 in 2005 and 17,379 in 2006, according to the Justice Ministry statistics released by Rep. Lee Ju-young of the main opposition Grand National Party at a parliamentary session.
Crimes by illegal immigrants surged from 1,999 in 2005 to 3,475 last year, it said. The most common types of crimes involving foreigners were assault, unlicensed driving, fraud and document forgery, it said.
"Violent crimes by foreigners have been increasingly frequent over the past several years. The government has to devise comprehensive measures to crack down on crimes by illegal foreigners, in particular," Lee said. [Korea Times]
At least they didn’t have a cartoon of a cute Korean girl running away from the evil foreigners. For those that haven’t aleady I highly recommend you read this before believing the hype in the Korean media.
1:57 am on November 3rd, 2007 1
Sounds like much ado about almost nothing. Among the four most common crimes, assault, unlicensed driving, fraud, and forged documents, only assaults and fraud pose a threat to the general public, if the fraud involved depriving residents of property and is not related to arranging illegal employment. Unlicensed driving could be a problem, but I doubt that illegal immigrants in Korea are any worse drivers than Koreans. I wonder if a lot of the assaults aren't fights between 3D workers since robbery isn't mentioned.
6:00 am on November 3rd, 2007 2
An interesting statistic would be percentage of the total foreigner population involved in crime in Korea as compared to percentage of Koreans involved in crime abroad.
It will all be sorted out on Judgment Day.
9:37 pm on November 3rd, 2007 3
Well I think this is a wake up call people. We as visitors to Korea need to be thankful we are here be on our best behavior. The Koreans are right, we are the problem not them.
Shame on you all who stop at red lights in the morning or those bad people who park in…get this…parking spots….And those houses of prostitution..a total foreigner problem there. I have NEVER seen open prostitution in Korea like glass houses and such and if such places actually existed…well they are hidden away in areas the police would never find….and certainly no Korean would find themselves in these areas.
SHAME ON US
11:15 pm on November 3rd, 2007 4
Mark,
I know Koreans are the fourth most imprisoned foreign population in the US due to prostitution and immigration issues. I have looked on the KNP webpage and did not see anything about Koreans committing crimes abroad.
3:01 am on November 4th, 2007 5
Hmmm…go figure. (ch'emyon)