Jeju Police To Learn Chinese To Deal With Crimes Better

To better deal with crimes that involve people from neighboring countries, police from Jeju Island are given a chance to learn Chinese.

The increase in the number of crimes in Jeju island involving Chinese is alarming that police are now taught how to speak Chinese. A Chinese class program was recently launched at Jeju Seobu Police Station. This special program is intended to help the officers at Nohyeong patrol division learn how to speak Chinese fast. It is believed that by learning the basics of Chinese, it would be easier for these officers to deal with crimes that involve Chinese-speaking offenders.

The significant increase in the number of Chinese-related crimes for the past years was alarming. From 58 in 2011, now it has gone up to 260 last year.

Last year alone, between January and October, about 70% of the 558 crimes committed by foreigners in the island involved Chinese. This means that majority of the crimes involving foreigners in the island were caused by Chinese. By teaching the officers how to speak Chinese, it is believed that it can help them deal with these issues better.

Jeju police seem to find the idea helpful since the program is getting a positive response from the officers in the island.

"The program is getting popular. There are officers who join the class on their day off," said an official of Nohyeong patrol division.

"Attendees are highly satisfied with the program because they can apply what they learn to real situations," the official added.

The program is done on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays. It will start from 6:30 p.m. and will go for about 30 minutes per session.

The special program was getting good feedbacks that they are now planning on launching it in other stations on the island. The more stations to offer the said program, the better, they said.