Instability of the North Korean Regime and the Residents' Defection: A Plan for Enhancing the Capacity of Security Police for Their Settlement in South Korea -With a Focus on the Rank of the Security Police's Department of Service-

Abstract

Purpose: Given the situation where it is expected that a plan of improvement for the North Korean refugee related support policy will be required in view of the recent incident of the North Korean defector returning to North Korea, which has become a problem in the South Korean society, the job satisfaction of the security police was surveyed based on the work area. This is because, given the situation where the security police perform various settlement related support activities as well as security tasks, which are their original duties, their job satisfaction can help improve the work efficiency and practically improve the settlement of the North Korean defectors. Method: In this study, among police officers in the security department as of 2020 who had experience in work related North Korean defectors, 100 trainees in the Police Human Resources Development Institute were surveyed via self-administration method. Among the collected survey questionnaires, 91 were selected as valid samples, excluding those whose answers were incomplete or missing. Results: First, the job satisfaction turned out to be higher as the number of employees of the police organization with which the police organization was affiliated increased, and second, the relationship between the division of work and authority and responsibility of the police working in large cities was clearer than that of the police working in small and medium cities, and as they are further classified and efficiently assigned, the commanders and superiors demonstrate a higher job satisfaction with the awareness that they are leading the staff by exam-ple rather than direct control. Conclusion: As a result of the study of this paper, the status of the North Korean defectors who are experienc-ing considerable difficulties in adapting and integrating into the South Korean society was identified, and the internal job satisfaction of the security police who are practically responsible for their settlement support was sur-veyed. Since the end of the Cold War, the status and job satisfaction of the security police have declined due to political reasons where the systemic competition between the South and the North has not surfaced, and the survey of their job satisfaction may yield a plan of improvement.