[Opinion] The Two Cops Effect

A veteran cop spends most of his working hours skimming off owners of bars and restaurants in his precinct. Officially he lives in a shady house as a low-income police officer, But his unofficial residence is like a palace, which has a secrete gate. Then his life turns upside down when a rookie, who just graduated from the police academy, joins him. He sticks to the principals, giving the corrupt cop hard times. It is a story of the 1993 box-office hit `The Two Cops,` which lured 900,000 movie goers nationwide. Although it came with a subtitle `This movie is irrelevant to the police in real life` at that time, the story of the comic movie turned out to be true just three years later. The police investigation team found that some policemen working at a station in Gangnam area skimmed off more than 100 million won from owners of bars and restaurants for two years.

The `Two Cops` series, which ended in 1998 with the third sequel, seems to be still in the making in the real world. Not only some policemen maintain a close relationship with bar owners, but also a policeman was found involved in an organized kidnapping crime. Of course, people believe that a majority of policemen is on their side. The latest news is, however, that the police agency has decided to assign rookies to Gangnam area in an effort to wipe out corruption, which prevails through cozy relationships between policemen and bar owners. An official at the Seoul Branch of the police agency said that they were pinning hopes on `The Two Cop` effect, indicating they are desperate to wipe out deeply-rooted corruption.

It seems, however, that officials at the agency did not see the movie through the end. Actor Park Jung-hoon, who played the rookie in ‘The Two Cops I,` had become a corrupt officer himself at the end of the movie. His determination and sense of mission were almost gone facing the reality. The same is repeated in `The Two Cops II,` in which another rookie turned into a corrupt cop himself after joining Park Jung-hoon, who became a veteran officer at this time. The policemen arrested in 1996, in fact, arranged the channels for those who replaced their seats, according to the investigation.

Corrupt police officers are not found in this country, though. In China, corruption prevails among policemen called security officers. Korean businesspeople working in Vietnam have concluded that money is the best way to deal with Vietnamese policemen. The police in Latin America are believed to be involved in criminal organizations. Four out of five victims in Mexico, therefore, choose not to report a crime to the police. What is important is whether police officers stick to the principals and respect the law. As long as disrespect for the law continues and loopholes exist, there always will be corrupt offers who feed on the underground world of the society, despite the police agency`s mobilization of rookies.

Kim Sun-deok, Editorial Writer, yuri@donga.com