New website lets South Koreans rate police investigations like restaurants

SEOUL – A new website lets people rate and review South Korean police units after their cases are handled.Police Map went live on Nov 4 and lists nearly 2,900 units at 263 police stations across South Korea.It describes itself as a platform for people with firsthand experience of police investigations, including complainants, witnesses and defence attorneys.Users can score units on a five-point scale across five categories, including whether officers followed procedures, how they conducted questioning and how quickly they handled a case.Users can also post written reviews.In a separate section, they can publicly raise concerns about specific stations, such as delays or how officers treated people involved in a case.The site had received 35 reviews by Nov 5. The early posts covered a range of encounters with police.“They showed me an AI-generated response and presented it as a legal basis,” wrote one user who gave a one-star rating in a review of Hongseong Police Station in South Chungcheong Province.The reviewer also accused officers of “lacking competence” and “using coercive methods” during investigations.A five-star review of Gangneung Police Station in Gangwon Province described a different kind of encounter. “I got into an argument with a stranger, and the officers arrived quickly and gave me a Band-Aid,” the user wrote.The website says it aims to document officers’ professional conduct through factual accounts.The site said recent changes to the division of investigative powers between police and prosecutors have left more cases to police resolution, but residents involved have had few ways to document their experiences publicly.“It is not punishment, but documentation, that changes the system,” the website states. It says public reviews could help build trust in officers who do their jobs well and flag problems that come up repeatedly. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK