The Background Papers

for the 22nd APCCA

                                                                                                     Denpasar, Indonesia

13-18, October 2002

Correction Bureau

Ministry of Justice

Republic of Korea

Contents

 1.  National Report on the Contemporary Issues In Corrections

 II. Outsourcing of Correctional Services

 III. Recruitment, Training and Career Development of Correctional Staff

 IV. The Reception and Classification of Prisoners as the Key to Rehabilitation

I. National Report on the Contemporary Issues In Corrections

 1. Correctional Organization

    A central organization having the general control over the correctional administration in the Republic of Korea consists of Director-General, Deputy Director-General, and Directors of six Divisions of the Correction Bureau under the Minister of Justice. Deputy Director-General assists Director-General in formulating and implementing correctional policies. Established and operated under Director-General are the Directors of six divisions of the Correction Bureau: the Correction Division, the First Security Division, the Second Security Division, the Prison Industry Division, the Educational Reformation Division and the Management Division. Those directors of six divisions plan nationwide policies concerning their own areas of correctional duties and order the wardens of local facilities throughout the country to put them into practice.

   As the intermediate control organ, the Regional Correction Headquarters were established in four big cities throughout the nation in 1991 in order to improve the management of facilities and to supervise the local-level correctional institutions within their jurisdictions. The organization of the Regional Correction Headquarters comprises 5 divisions; the General Affairs Division, the Security Division, the Medical Care and Classification Division, the Industry Division and the Educational Reformation Division.

   With regard to the field-level organizations, there are 44 correctional facilities across the nation. The number breaks down into 26 correctional institutions, two juvenile facilities, one women and one open correctional institution, 8 detention centers, two social protection houses, and 4 branches of detention centers. There are some differences in the organizational structure between a correctional institution and a detention center according to the functions and duties of them.

   An ordinary correctional institution comprises 6 divisions; General Affairs Division, Security Division, Prison Industry Division, Supplies Division, Educational Reformation Division and Medical Care Division. A bigger correctional institution includes the Classification Division besides those divisions. In the correctional institution, the Prison Industry Division and the Educational Reformation Division play important roles in cultivating prisoners' work spirit and rehabilitating the inmates to go back to society as a sound citizen.

   In contrast, in a detention center there are 9 divisions: General Affairs Division, Security Division, Court Appearance Division, Classification Division, Visitation & Deposit Division, Personal File Division, Supplies Division, Educational Reformation Division, and the Medical Care Division. The major function of a detention center is to incarcerate the inmates under trial, resulting in keeping them in custody and in prohibiting of elimination of evidence until the settlement of decision. Therefore, the Court Appearance Division, the Personal File Division and the Visitation & Deposit Division feature a detention center's operation because it incarcerates offenders on remand.

  Table I-1: Current Status of Correctional Institutions

(As of the end of June, 2002)

2. Correctional Staff

   The total number of staff serving at all the correctional institutions in Korea is 12,484 as of June 30, 2002. Of them, 218 officers work for the Correction Bureau, the Regional Correction Headquarters and the Training Institute, and 12,266 officers do for local-level correctional facilities throughout the country. In comparison with the year of 2001, 137 officers were increased in 2002. Headed by the Director-General, the Correction Bureau of Korea employs 10,959 sworn officials and 1,388 un-uniformed ones. The un-uniformed officials break down as the following.

Table I-2: Strength of Correctional Officers

                                      (As of the end of June, 2002)

Table I-3: Composition of Sworn Correctional Officers

   There were only 7,185 correctional staff in 1980, however, the number of them has gradually increased and stood at 8,574 in 1988. By introducing the three-shift working system of security staff in the local correctional facilities the Correction Bureau employed 2,100 correctional officers at one time in 1989. The number of all the correctional staff increased to 10,780 at that time, which greatly contributed to alleviate work assignment of correctional officers and to improve the treatment of inmates. The increase of the number of correctional officers after 1990 attributed to the construction of new correctional facilities such as Ulsan, Suwon, and Incheon Detention Centers, and Yuijoo Correctional Institution.

3. Inmates

   A daily average number of inmates accommodated in correctional facilities in Korea was 48,755 at the end of 1980. The number of inmates had gradually increased and amounted to 52,050 in 1985, and reached the maximum of 60,166 in 1995. Especially, during the time of economic crisis in Korea in 1998 and 1999, the number of inmates came to over 70,000 owing to the increase of property crimes. Since the economic situation has been recovered, the number of them decreased to 68,000 at the end of 1999, and it came to about 61,500 in June 2002. The category of all the inmates and classification in Korea in 2001 is as the following. As indicated by the table I-4, the average accommodated inmates are overcrowded for the imprisonment capacity.

   At the end of June 2002, the total number of inmates in Korea is 61,470. Among them the number of convicted prisoners is 38,238 (62.2%) and that of unconvicted inmates(on remand) is 23,232 (37.8%). The number of all the inmates accounts for 0.13% of the total population of the country, which is approximately 47.7 million.

Table I-4: Category of Inmates in Korea

(as of the end of 2001)

As shown in Table I-5, the number of inmates has rapidly increased since 1998 due to the economic crisis in Korea. Especially, the number of the inmates on remand and the detainees for not paying fine increased unexpectedly owing to the worse economic situation that caused to increase of property crimes and inability to pay fine money.

Since 1998, the Korean correctional administration has faced serious overcrowding. The number of inmates reached over 74,000 in December 1999 in spite that the capacity of accommodation of all the correctional facilities throughout the nation was 56,000 at that time.

Table I-5: Daily Average Population Accommodated Yearly

     The whole criminal justice system in Korea has been trying to solve the overcrowding. The correction bureau began to construct several detention centers and repair old correctional facilities for enlarging the capacity of inmate accommodation. The prosecutors' office reduced the number of inmates on remand by controlling indictment rate. The Ministry of Justice enlarged the parole to release many exemplary prisoners. It permitted parole for 2,614 inmates in 1997, 4,790 in 1998, and 8,559 in 1999, which indicated the rapid expansion of the number of parolees after 1998.

With respect to the number of parolees, a total of 9,393 prisoners were permitted to parole in 2001, which was equivalent to 30.9% of all the released in the same year. In recent years, the Correction Bureau has expanded the grant of parole according to the new policy, that is, “Corrections opening inmates’ brighter future.” For example, those inmates who pass the college entrance examination or acquire a certificate of skill can get a permission of parole with easier than the past. Due to those policies, the total number of inmates has reduced to 61,470 at the end of June 2002. The table of I-6 shows this trend of correctional policies in Korea.

Table I-6: Number of parolees and its ratio to all the released

4. Composition of Inmates

   The number of female inmates was 3,282 at the end of 1996, which comprised the 5.6% of all the inmates. The number implies an apparent increase of female inmates in comparison with 4.8% of all inmates in 1986. Meanwhile, male inmates were 50,228 in 1986 and increased to 56,061 in 1995, showing the increase of 11.6%.  In contrast, female inmates were 2,505 in 1986 and 3,254 in 1995, showing the rapid increase of 33.4%. This increase can be attributed to the more female's participation in social activities, thus the number of female inmates is expected to gradually increase in the future. 

As shown in Table I-7, a ratio of female inmates among all the unconvicted in 2001 made 7.5%, while that of the convicted pointed 3.5%. The figure implies that the prosecutors are usually generous to women offenders, being reluctant to indict them in comparison with men offenders.

Table I-7 : Composition of all the inmates By Sex

(as of Dec. 2001)

In terms of the age of inmates, inmates aged between 20 and 40 comprised the majority. They were more than 70% of all the inmates.  After 1993, the majority of inmates were between 30 and 40 years old, which were different from the fact that the inmates aged between 20 and 25 occupied the biggest proportion before. As of the end of 2001, the proportion of the inmates between 30 and 40 of age was 32.3%, between 20 and 25 was 18.3% and between 25 and 30 was 16.5%. This figure indicates that the number of inmates under 20 years old has gradually decreased, while that of inmates between 30 and 40 of age has recently increased year by year. Especially, in the case of between 40 and 50 of age, the number of 3,547 in 1992 has largely increased to 9,146 in 2001, which indicates the increase of 260% for the last 10 years.

Table I-8 : Composition of all the convicted inmates By Age

(as of Dec. 2001)

With regard to the foreign inmates, in recent years number of them has rapidly increased with the increase of foreign visitors and the expansion of employment for foreigners. The number of foreign prisoners was 128 in 1985, 323 in 2000, and reached 506 at the end of 2001.  With respect to the composition of foreign inmates, Chinese inmates have been majority since 1981 to date, and at the end of 1997, Americans and the Japanese were followed in order of the number. Nowadays, however, the number of Russian and East Asian inmates has been increased.  The number of foreign inmates is expected to gradually increase in the future. The current accommodation of foreign inmates is as follows at the end of 2001.

Table I-9: Composition of foreign inmates

                                                                           (as of Dec. 2001)