Accounting for rapid growth of private policing in South Korea

Although private policing has existed since the dawn of society, the widespread availability of private policing is a relatively new phenomenon. The purpose of this study was to explore the contributing factors in the rapid growth of private policing by examining the Korean case. This study also attempted to explore the nature and implications of private policing within large context of political, economic, legal, and cultural systems. Several factors contributed to the popularization of private policing in recent years. The decentralization of policing authority provided a political ground for the growth of private policing. The economic affluence in the late 1980s also paved the way for the wide availability of private policing and its specialization in Korea. The findings of this study revealed that the changing nature of legal culture, from mediation and reconciliation to litigation, contributed to the rapid growth of private policing in Korea. In addition, fear of crime and some historical events such as the Olympic Games were closely related to the expansion of private policing in Korea.