North Korea’s Law Enforcement

Structure of North Korea’s Law enforcement 

Structure 

According to Kim (2006), the law enforcement system in North Korea is divided into two domestic law agencies including the secret police and ordinary police. The subdivisions of the security agencies reflect the country’s administrative structure. The executive is designed in such a way that each province, cities, and counties have their police departments from all subdivisions. Like the military men, all the North Korean’s police officers have ranks, and people have an opportunity to report cases of social disorder to the ministry of people’s security while the undercover police deal with criminals who found guilty of committing a state crime such as murder or theft. 

Civil order control and deviance control 

The structure of law enforcement shows that North Korean's law enforcement has distinct forces for civil laws and deviance control. The ordinary security agency is formally known as the ministry of people's security and plays an essential role in providing internal security to the North Korean's (Kim, 2006). The fundamental function of this branch is to control social behavior by handling small cases such as a conflict between individuals and perform essential police functions making it one of the key organizations in the country. Ministry of people's security is equipped with tools and more than 144,000 personnel in the country making it possible for the agency to ensure internal safety (Kim, 2006). The secret department is officially known as the ministry for protection of the state security. They play a fundamental role in monitoring the society for a dissent behavior by arresting those who criticize against the regime as well as well controlling the camps for political prisoners. 

Legal controls over law enforcement 

Police Training 

Police training starts with the recruitment procedure applied when hiring people to join the force. North Korea has local party committees which summons the young people willing to volunteer and join the police force (Kuzmarov, 2009). The selected candidates are offered the job at different levels. The high school students occupy the rank of private while university students receive a direct promotion to the junior lieutenant. 

Police responsibility 

North Korean police force plays essential roles in the criminal procedure of North Korea. For instance, they participate in the registration of citizens, monitoring and maintenance of the net informants, and fight both political and non-political issues (Kuzmarov, 2009). The ordinary police in North Korea are actively involved in the first duty where they conduct the formal registration of all North Korean’s citizens. When performing this duty, the police take details of all the individuals regarding ethnicity, nationality, and date of birth. The information provided is crucial because it allows for investigators with adequate information to capture the person responsible for a particular crime. The registration process goes into deep details about the individual such as party membership, marital status, health, level of education, and the career profession of the person. 

The police play a crucial role in maintaining the most significant network connection to monitor the population in the country. This duty requires monitoring and observing the behaviors of the citizens to report suspects to the body of police who reads the report and decides whether the suspect is associated with any political offence. In a situation where the individual is found guilty of committing the prescribed crimes, they are handed over to the undercover body of police for further investigation as well as taking care of the person. In the case of crime reporting, North Korea courts receive crimes related to murder, robbery, embezzlement of state property, and gang fighting but several citizens are associated with drugs making it one of the crimes that police have to fight. 

Technology 

In performing the duties assigned to police, the state government provides a profile that contains all relevant information about every citizen (Thompson, 2006). The file provides adequate information about the people covering from age, citizenship, work, to a level of education. According to Thompson, (2006) the multiple data provides adequate information used by the police for surveillance thus making it easy to determine whether the suspect is guilty of committing a particular crime or not. Though the police are divided into provincial, county, and city departments as well as the ordinary and secret department, there is an existence of network connectivity across all the police branches making it easier to exchange information. The police are increasingly using mobile phones to keep connected. 

Similarities and differences between North Korea’s Law enforcement and the USA 

Factors to consider: When comparing the law enforcement of different countries, there is a need for focusing on factors such as the law enforcement structure, technology, police hiring, and training. These aspects provide adequate information and countries can decide to borrow some ideas from the law enforcement of the other nation thus improving their law enforcement procedures. 

Similarities 

The structure of law investment in North Korea is similar to that of the US especially when it comes to the structure of the enforcement system. Both countries have a police system that handles local and state crimes. Like in North Korea, the US law enforcement system has local and state officers who deal with different crimes committed in the country. In both countries, the police are divided into distinct groups that operate at provincial and city levels. Cases of murder and other state crimes are forwarded to federal courts. 

Differences 

Despite the similarities, law enforcement in both North Korea and the USA has significant differences. In the USA there are both local and state police officers, but they are further subdivided into subgroups such as schools, traffic, county, and transport police who play an essential role ensuring security to the citizens while North Korea’s police force has only secret and people’s safety (Hollywood et al., 2017). The USA police force receives enforcements from volunteers and part-time police employed by the government. In the case of training, people willing to join the police force are selected and taken to academic training unlike in North Korea where the selected candidates are taken to police units direct. In the case of technology, the North Korea law enforcement should adopt the training procedures for police forces approved by the US and select the usage of the electronic gazer capable of charging 50,000 volts for 8 seconds (Gill, 2018). The USA law enforcement department can also borrow the digital spy technology used in South Korea to spy the population as well; as providing the file data which makes it easy to monitor the citizens thus reducing the number of police required in a particular region. 

References 

Hollywood, J. S., Woods, D., Goodison, S. E., Lauland, A., Wagner, L., Wilson, T. J., & Jackson, B. A. (2017).    Fostering Innovation in US Law Enforcement . Rand Corporation. 

Kim, S. A. (2006).    (The) North Korean Penal Code, Criminal Procedures, and their Actual Applications . Korea Institute for National Unification. 

Kuzmarov, J. (2009). Modernizing repression: Police training, political violence, and nation-building in the “American century”.    Diplomatic History ,    33 (2), 191-221. 

Thompson, C. (2006). Open-source spying.    New York Times , 3 .