민간조사의 수요증가와 퇴직경찰관 활용방안

Abstract

Scholars in the related academic fields are discussing the official introduction of private investigation in South Korea. One of the main topics of the discussion is utilization of retired police officers as private investigators. This idea comes from the fact that the two professions are closely related, and it will likely to reap more benefits than hiring laymen. Along with the positive expectation, there are also concerns about the absence of judicial power for private investigators as well as the difficulties that the retired officers will have in getting hired by customer service-oriented for-profit investigation agencies without completing additional special training. For these reasons, I asked the participants of the research, police officers, for their opinions on the causes of the rising demand for private investigation services and on the anticipated problems in some of the retired officers getting rehired as private investigators and the necessary training requirement to resolve this issue. Qualitative research methods,Group and Internet interviews, were used and the collected data was analyzed by using the NVivo 8 which is a non-quantity data analysis program. The result disclosed that the most frequently mentioned causes of the rising demand for private investigation services were the limitation of the police in maintaining public order, performance-based evaluation and personnel management system of the police, and increased efforts among private enterprises to protect themselves. Also, the participants stated that the major problem in hiring retired police men as private investigators would be the difference between the investigative work of the two professions; the two main areas of the contrast were the related legislation and the level of civil cooperation. Other arguments included the lack of service-oriented attitude and aging of the retired police officers. Moreover,diverse areas of training-customer service, methods of performing private investigation services, management of private investigation agencies, and related legislation-were considered crucial for the retiring police officers to be re-employed in the field of private investigation.