President Lee Jae-myung said on Oct. 23 that the government must confront a recent string of violent crimes "with the resolve of declaring war," ordering a shift from after-the-fact response to advance prevention. Follow-up discussions on building a response system for violent crime have continued at the presidential office, with Lee convening a series of meetings on crimes driven by unidentifiable motives, crimes between people in close relationships and crimes against socially vulnerable groups, after he stressed the need for extraordinary measures at a senior secretaries' meeting.
"We must make a sweeping shift from after-the-fact response to a prevention system, including by building a system that can detect warning signs early," Lee said at a government-wide meeting at the presidential office on a comprehensive public-safety initiative (an action plan to build a safer society). "We must establish and carry out the principle of firmly protecting the public from the risk of similar crimes, by drawing up measures to prevent recurrence based on a thorough analysis of whether crimes that have already occurred could have been stopped in advance."
"Public anxiety is growing very sharply as violent crimes continue one after another, from crimes that occur in intimate relationships such as families and partners to crimes driven by unidentifiable motives that target random members of the public," Lee said. "Such crimes are a grave problem that endangers not only individual victims but the safety of society as a whole." He added that with crimes between people in close relationships in particular, "victims are repeatedly left exposed to continuing threats, or fail to receive adequate protection even after reporting the danger."
Saying that "this situation must no longer be left unaddressed," Lee stressed again that "protecting the lives and safety of the people is the state's most basic duty, and we must approach violent crime with the resolve of declaring war." He added that "the government-wide action plan for a safer society is a starting point for building a society where anyone can feel safe and secure in daily life," and that "because there must not be even the smallest gap in protecting the lives and safety of the people, I hope these discussions will produce effective measures through which the public can feel the change."