Turning a Blind Eye to Petty Crime in North Korea

North Koreans going about their everyday lives.

Like anywhere else in the world, there is crime in North Korea

As the gap between rich and poor widens, illegal activities tend to surge as those in poverty become increasingly restless. South Korea’s ‘Jijonpa Incident’ would be a representative example from the Korean peninsula. In this incident, a group of people from a lower socioeconomic group brutally murdered those in a higher one. They claimed that society’s problems was to blame for their actions and attempted to justify their crimes based on the wide gap between the rich and the poor.

North Korea maintains strong surveillance and control over all of its citizens, and foreign visitors to the country often comment on how safe they feel while in the country. However, the truth is that just like anywhere else in the world, there is crime in North Korea, ranging from petty to large. Extremes in the country’s wealth gap has given rise to a range of criminal activities among North Koreans, ranging from theft to murder.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the economic collapse and widespread hunger during the time of the ‘Arduous March’ were accompanied by a rise in petty crime. These typically included theft to alleviate starvation. And according to the testimonies of defectors, widespread hunger changed perceptions of petty crime in North Korea.

Speaking about the period of transition, North Korean refugee Park Jun-hee recalls, “In an earlier period, when a thief was caught, he was despised by the people so much that they would call for the cutting off of his hands. But during the Arduous March, even if you were robbed, there was not the same outrage due to the feeling that food must be shared. Because there were so many people dying of hunger around us, it was an era during which people turned a blind eye to such activities.”

In North Korea, the prevalence of petty crime has apparently reached the point where thievery is also referred to as “regulation” in slang.

According to Park, when those who lived through those days heard of someone dying from hunger, it was customary to say aloud, as they sobbed with grief, “Why were they so stupid as to die of hunger instead of thinking of stealing?”

Refugees seem to agree that the first to die were mostly those who naively believed in and kept faith with the regime’s propaganda. In worst hit areas, larger families in particular were the first to die of starvation while those who sought out alternatives and sold foodstuff they collected from the mountains survived longer.

Refugee testimonies suggest that there are numerous stories about people running out of food to sell from the limited area of the mountain that they covered, and dying because they had eaten poisonous weeds.

However, as with the ‘Jijonpa Incident’ in South Korea and similar stories that occur in most other societies in the world, there are those in North Korea who commit crimes due to dissatisfaction towards society and the severe gap between the rich and poor.

Kim Mi-jung, a defector, stated, “When I rode the bus wearing clothing that was slightly better than usual, I found that the back part of my clothing and my bag had been slit by a blade. It was more than once that happened.” Kim added, “On the train I once witnessed a well-presented woman being stabbed by a man wielding a knife.”

In addition, a new type of North Korean crime appears to have emerged: instances of North Korean soldiers stealing from ordinary citizens because they cannot find enough to eat are cited as being common events.

According to an eyewitness account, “An old couple who hid a large store of farm products in their yard were robbed overnight by soldiers. When they were asked why they were digging up their yard afterwards, the old couple replied, ‘We are digging for money because in the days of Japanese rule, resistance fighters [during the colonial period] would leave some money behind after they had dug up farm goods without asking permission.’ They were that naive.”

An army exists to protect citizens against foreign forces. But in North Korea, not only do they regularly steal from civilians, those in the border regions are ordered to prevent citizens from leaving the country. A blind eye to petty crime in North Korea among the people; a blind eye to institutional crime among the leadership.