{"id":9172,"date":"2026-05-08T14:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T14:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/9172\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T14:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T14:22:07","slug":"kim-jong-uns-police-reform-pledge-change-or-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/9172\/","title":{"rendered":"Kim Jong Un’s police reform pledge: change or control?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"North<\/a>North Korean leader Kim Jong Un applauds as he attends the Ninth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) in Pyongyang, North Korea, February 22, 2022. (KCNA) <\/p>\n

In his policy address to the Supreme People\u2019s Assembly on March 23, 2026, Kim Jong Un<\/a> declared that he would establish \u201ca police<\/a> system<\/a> suited to our country.\u201d North Korea already has a functioning internal security apparatus: the Ministry of Social Security, formerly known as the Ministry of People\u2019s Security, which handles law<\/a> enforcement duties. In the same address, Kim pledged to \u201cguarantee the internal security of the state and social stability.\u201d Read against the grain<\/a>, this amounted to an implicit admission by the North Korean authorities themselves that public order and social stability are facing serious problems.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Social Security fields<\/a> two categories of officers: security officers, who handle general policing, and traffic control officers. Local police substations, the equivalent of neighborhood police posts, are set up across the country. North Korean state media<\/a> portrays the country as something close to an earthly paradise and almost never reports on crime<\/a>. Yet as economic hardship has dragged on, the internal security situation appears to have deteriorated. Kaoru Hasuike, a Japanese citizen abducted by North Korea, said in a February interview with the Asahi Shimbun that \u201ctheft and robbery are frequent in North Korea.\u201d According to people who have left North Korea, the state wired broadcast system, known informally as the \u201cThird Broadcast,\u201d sometimes publicly announces the names of those caught committing theft<\/a> or traffic violations. When serious crimes such as robbery or murder<\/a> occur, word spreads rapidly among the population.<\/p>\n

In a surveillance<\/a> state like North Korea, perpetrators of murder and theft are often caught relatively quickly, because reports go directly to the Ministry of Social Security. But a separate and more serious problem underlies the system. A former Workers\u2019 Party<\/a> of Korea official, speaking with me by phone, identified it<\/a> bluntly: \u201cThe biggest problem is the pervasiveness of bribery.\u201d Officials<\/a> tasked with maintaining public order and social stability are neglecting those duties in favor of extracting bribes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A system undermined from within<\/p>\n

Security officers in North Korea are civil servants assigned to law enforcement, which means they cannot easily engage directly in market<\/a> activity or side businesses the way ordinary North Korean people do. To compensate for inadequate salaries, many find other means of supplementing their income through bribery.<\/p>\n

In North Korea, license plates alone reveal a driver\u2019s approximate status: whether they belong to a state agency official, a diplomat, a military<\/a> officer, and so on. Traffic control officers who judge a driver<\/a> unlikely to cause serious trouble will pull them over and invent a pretext, citing worn tires or a passing violation, to demand a fine that functions in practice as a bribe. North Korean drivers routinely carry cigarettes<\/a> to offer as a preemptive payment to smooth over encounters with traffic officers. The former party official noted that things can escalate quickly: \u201cIf the situation turns sour, you can have your identity card or driver\u2019s license confiscated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another person who left North Korea described a more serious pattern on highway entry checkpoints, where some traffic control officers reportedly collude with freight distributors, taking a portion of cargo as a kind of informal toll. Around a decade ago, a driver on the highway connecting Wonsan<\/a> in Kangwon province<\/a> and Pyongyang<\/a> was allegedly killed after refusing to comply with a bribe demand. In some cases, when trucks stop at checkpoints, officers simply help themselves to a portion of the cargo as a matter of course.<\/p>\n

Ordinary North Korean people who are victims<\/a> of theft sometimes choose not to report<\/a> it, particularly when the losses are modest. They fear that an investigation<\/a> could expose South Korean<\/a> products or banned video<\/a> content inside their homes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is also a countervailing cultural dynamic. North Korea has a tradition of viewing Robin Hood-type figures who steal from the wealthy<\/a> favorably. The classical Korean story of Hong Gildong, a fictional outlaw who redistributed wealth, is well known among the North Korean population and has even been adapted as a children\u2019s animated series. People tend to feel anger<\/a> toward criminals<\/a> who prey on many ordinary people simultaneously, but hold a comparatively lenient view of someone who steals from a single wealthy target.<\/p>\n

Kim Jong Un has, over the past year and into 2026, dismissed party and government<\/a> officials at major construction<\/a> sites including Pyongyang General Hospital and the Ryongsong Machine Complex in South Hamgyong province, denouncing those who showed \u201cdefeatism, irresponsibility, and passivity.\u201d The former party official interpreted the push for a new police system in this context: \u201cIt appears to be an attempt to correct social corruption<\/a> and contradictions, and to restore public trust in the party and government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebranding North Korea\u2019s police apparatus<\/p>\n

Some observers suggest the intent may also be to rebrand the Ministry of Social Security, which has historically emphasized surveillance, to project an image closer to that of a police force in a Western country. But the former party official was skeptical that this would weaken the underlying surveillance infrastructure. \u201cMonitoring and reporting are obligations of North Korean citizens,\u201d he said. \u201cThe likelihood that the internal surveillance system as a whole, not just the Ministry of Social Security, will be weakened is almost nil.\u201d<\/p>\n

One additional development from the 15th Supreme People\u2019s Assembly\u2019s first session is worth noting. Kim Cholwon, the prosecutor<\/a> general of the Supreme Procuratorate, North Korea\u2019s top prosecutorial body, was elected to the State Affairs Commission, the country\u2019s highest decision-making organ, which has 14 members. Placing a senior judicial official in the state\u2019s highest leadership body appears designed to reassure the population that the regime takes social order seriously.<\/p>\n

In North Korea, however, the supreme leader\u2019s word takes effective precedence over the constitution. The \u201ctwo hostile<\/a> states\u201d doctrine that now frames North Korea\u2019s posture toward South Korea<\/a> originated with remarks Kim Jong Un made at a Workers\u2019 Party of Korea Central Committee plenary session in late 2023, after which it became state policy. North Korean state media did not report a constitutional revision reflecting these changes until October 2024.<\/p>\n

The former party official offered a final assessment: \u201cIn a country where the rule of law does not exist, no matter how many judicial officials are elevated to high positions, it will be difficult for that to have any real effect on building social order.\u201d<\/p>\n

The views expressed in this column are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Daily NK.<\/p>\n

Read in Korean<\/a><\/p>\n

Reporting from inside North Korea<\/p>\n

\n Daily NK operates networks of sources inside North Korea who document events in real-time and transmit information<\/a> through secure channels. Unlike reporting based on state media, satellite<\/a> imagery, or defector<\/a> accounts from years past, our journalism comes directly from people currently living under the regime. We verify reports through multiple independent sources and cross-reference details before publication.\n <\/p>\n

\n Our sources remain anonymous because contact with foreign media is treated as a capital<\/a> offense in North Korea \u2014 discovery means imprisonment or execution. This network-based approach allows Daily NK to report on developments other outlets cannot access: market trends, policy implementation, public sentiment, and daily realities that never appear in official narratives.\n <\/p>\n

\n Maintaining these secure communication channels and protecting source identities requires specialized protocols and constant vigilance. Daily NK serves as a bridge<\/a> between North Koreans and the outside world, documenting what\u2019s happening inside one of the world\u2019s most closed societies.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"North Korean leader Kim Jong Un applauds as he attends the Ninth Congress of the Workers’ Party of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[174,7030,448,141,31,7032,34,7031,4724,3759,454],"class_list":{"0":"post-9172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-north-korea","8":"tag-corruption","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-ideology","11":"tag-kim-jong-un","12":"tag-korea","13":"tag-ministry-of-social-security","14":"tag-north-korea","15":"tag-police","16":"tag-supreme-peoples-assembly","17":"tag-surveillance","18":"tag-workers-party-of-korea"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}