경찰 ‘수사경과제’ 운영에 따른 개선방안 연구 : 충남경찰청 경찰관 인식조사를 중심으로

Abstract

National Policy Agency (NPA) in Korea introduced the 'Professional Detective System' in 2005 against the backdrop of an increase in violent crimes, low attraction for detectives inside NPA, and falling investigative capacity as a result. During the past 9 years since its inception, there has been much critique on its performance. Extant research on this subject deal mostly with the level of institutional support and surveys on professional detectives themselves. This study is distinct because first, unlike the previous ones, we survey not only the professional detectives but includes the policy crew in other functional departments such as planning, administrative, traffic control, etc. In so doing, we focus on whether the introduction of the 'profession detective system' actually created organizational and psychological dichotomy inside NPA, thereby impairing the initial investigative capacity often encountered by policy officers not in the path for a professional detective. Second, we found worrisome trends in crime arrests, arrest warrant rejections, and public satisfaction with detective functions of NPA. We trace the underlying reasons for this to the unintended byproduct of the 'professional detective system' with focus group interviews and an extensive survey on the subject. Nearly 90% of both the detectives and the policy officers in other functions think the current system has to be remedied. A falling intial investigative capacity is cited to be the key collateral damage of the new system, since many non-detective police officers now seem to think of detective works as something outside their job descriptions, causing the careless and delayed handling of the crimes in its initial stage until the detectives take over. Moreover, what is striking is the fact that detectives themselves show greater dissatisfaction with the current system than other officers. Inflexible personnel management of the current system seems to have hurt the investigative capacity of NPA more than it nurtured the professionalism as intended.