(image: Korea University Anam Hospital)
SEOUL, Sept. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of reports of dating violence last year tripled from the previous year, while the arrest rate more than halved, a lawmaker said Thursday.
The data, submitted by the National Police Agency to Rep. Jeon Bong-min of the ruling People Power Party, revealed that the number of reports of dating violence jumped from 18,945 in 2020 to 57,297 last year.
This year, 40,339 cases of dating violence had already been reported as of the end of July.
In contrast, the arrest rate, which stood at 72.9 percent in 2017, dropped to 47.4 percent in 2020, before reaching a new low of 18.4 percent last year. This year, the arrest rate stood at 17.7 percent as of July.
Only 2.7 percent of perpetrators of dating violence arrested on criminal charges were incarcerated in 2020, dropping to 2.2 percent in 2021 and 1.8 percent this year.
Police responded that the spiking number of dating violence reports last year is largely attributed to the introduction of a new counting system.
It was not appropriate to use the word ‘arrest rate’ since the statistics include numerous false and overlapping reports, police added.
“The arrest rate should be 100 percent if we look at the verified cases of dating violence,” a police official said.
“Dating violence normally occurs among people who know each other, and there is almost no way for us to fail in tracking down the perpetrators.”
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
