Korea Joins Unsafe Countries

There are 2.2 murder victims every 100,000 people in Korea, making the country the ninth unsafe one to live in among 30 OECD members.

On March 27, the Korea Development Institute published a report dubbed “Historical Evaluation of Korea’s Fiscal Policies,” pointing out the country’s need to increase its budget for policing.

According to the report, as of 2004, out of 100,000 people, Mexico top the list with 13 murder victims, followed by the U.S. (5.6), Turkey (3.8), Slovakia (2.7), Switzerland (2.6), Portugal (2.6), Czech (2.3) and Hungary (2.3). Compared to these places, Korea was safer.

Korea has been deemed a safe nation because it outlaws the possession of guns. But the results showed that Korea is not as safe as it was thought to be.

Canada, Poland, Australia and Germany all had less than two victims every 100,000 people and the Netherlands, Austria and Luxemburg had less than one.

Japan was found to be the safest with the smallest number of 0.5.

While Korea is more or less unsafe in terms of public security, it is a country where citizens’ right to property is relatively well-protected with civil lawsuits.

Korea ranked 10th among 200 countries in a comprehensive evaluation on the protection of private property because of its litigation procedures and low costs. It takes, on average, 230 days to complete a procedure whereas in Singapore it takes 120 days to do the same.

legman@donga.com