The Increased Defection of North Koreans Following the Collapse of the Market Economy Due to the Kim Jong-Un Regime’s Military Reinforcement

Abstract

Purpose: In this study, North Korea's recent military advancements including supersonic missile test launch and long-range missile test, and systematic, widespread and terrible human rights violations in North Korea including 'genocide, murder, enslavement, torture, detention, rape, forced abortion, sexual violence and discrimination based on politics, religion, race and gender, forced mobilization of residents, enforced disappearance, and inten-tional extension of starvation' have been practiced, while the North Korean defectors have fled to South Korea every year in search of freedom, and the perception and attitude towards job satisfaction by gender and age have been analyzed for the police officers serving in the security police organization, which is recognized as the most closed police organization for police officers by age and gender. Based on which, it is intended to discuss policy measures to create an organization which can increase the job satisfaction of the security police with a new or-ganizational culture which matches the ever evolving military advancements in North Korea and the human rights crisis. Method: In this study, 100 police officers serving in the security department who have work experiences related to the North Korean defectors were surveyed based on the self-administration method by using the South Korean police officers as a group in 2020 in order to analyze the perception and attitude towards the job satisfaction based on gender and age targeting the police officers serving in the security police organization. Results: As a result of the analysis performed, across most of the questions with statistical significance for the gender of the security police managing the North Korean defectors due to the ever evolving military advance-ments in North Korea and the human rights crisis, the male security police officers turned out to have a relative more positive evaluation of the level of job satisfaction than the female police officers. Furthermore, in terms of age, the positive perception and attitude of the older age group is high across most of the questions, whereas the negative perception is relatively high for the age group in their 20s. Regarding the relationship between gender and age, it turned out that the males in their 50s and above and females in their 30s demonstrated the highest positive perception and attitude for the job satisfaction. Conclusion: In conclusion, first, the culture within the security police organization needs to be improved and will also need to be transformed into a security police organization which can fully demonstrate the potential and creativity of the security police through the fairness of personnel management. Second, it is very urgent to enact laws (rules) to ensure the organizational stability of the security police. Third, it is necessary to secure the equip-ment and professional manpower to acquire the security resources, and strengthen the specialized education. In order to be renewed as a new security police which responds to the rapidly changing security environment, the number of young security police officers needs to be increased, and the young police officers need to derive new ideas and be involved in collecting, analyzing, and producing information related to the various crimes (including multiple crimes) against the North Korean defectors toward becoming leaders on their own as they respond to police policies and decision-makers with the measures for the safe settlement of the North Korean defectors and crime prevention, whereby the job satisfaction of the security police will be further developed into a more progres-sive organizational culture.