1. Overview

The defectors who already left the North Korea regime are difficult to adapt themselves into the society in South Korea due to misunderstanding on culture and capitalistic system, language problems, difficult employment, prejudice, personal neglection and discretion to the society in South Korea. The North Korean defectors committed crimes more than two times the South Koreans did, and the former had either repeated offences or previous convictions four to five times more than the latter had. Total number of North Korean defectors living in South Korea reached to over 20,000 as of the end of 2010.
The purpose of this study is to examine causes and processes of criminal behaviors among the North Korean defectors who were in prisons as of June 2010 by analyzing their criminal s and to suggest policies that can lessen or prevent their crimes. This study also briefly introduces theories of immigration as a starting point for the whole process analyzing North Korean defector's crimes, as well as causes of common crimes, and scrutinizes processes that the North Korean defectors could not adapt them to the South Korean society and committed crimes. The last chapter introduces the government's supporting policies including problems at settlement process of the North Korean defectors and suggests policies that prevent the defectors from committing crimes.
This study on all of 48 North Korean defector in prisons as of June, 2010 examines demographical factors, living condition in South Korea, cultural difference, social adaption for the settlement and investigates types and causes of crimes they committed. This study is not able to conduct interviews in depth with those defector prisoners directly because of national security matters, but to analyze their criminal s including police reports, court decisions, their letter to courts, social/cultural backgrounds on daily lives and crimes. These s were collected from 22 public prosecutor's offices and prisons.

2. Discussion

Merton's anomie theory is the most appropriate one to describe the crimes that the North Korean defectors had committed. Most of the defectors entered into South Korea wish to have high quality of lives including high incomes and living conditions. In reality, however, they are suffering from relatively low social status and low incomes in comparison with the average South Korean's quality of lives. They did not know the ways of living in the capitalistic society and had no means of survival in the competitive society. They realized the gap between their dreams and reality. The gap between their goals and means drew them into the opportunity to committing crimes such theft, robbery, fraud, murder and violence. Eventually, they were isolated from the main society and committed or were forced to commit crimes. In particular, violence crime committed by the defectors had occurred when they could not find the exit their dissatisfaction is expressed due to the discrepancy between incomes they wants and those they actually received. Furthermore, this types of discrepancy can be used to explain drug crime, in particular, drug injection crimes.

3. Analysis on Criminal Records

The defectors from North Korea show some characteristics. The number of women defectors has constantly increased since 2000. In 2010, over 68% of them are females. This is due to types of defection. One of those types is group defection in family units whose members mostly consist of females and children. Especially, women are easy to be a part of planned defection organized by brokers because they easily get jobs after arriving in South Korea and in return, easily pay back the broker expenses.
Most of them come from Hamgyeongbuk-do where residents are allowed to contact external world frequently. The defectors in their ages of twenties to forties occupy approximately 75% of those defectors.
More than 60% of the defectors live at Seoul and Metropolitan Area. Before defection, most of them were not employed (49%) or worked as labor workers (39%). Three quarters of them had educational background of high school graduation.
The defectors' immigration seems to have relations with high rate of crimes. Last ten years, approximate 20 percent of the defectors were found to commit crimes.
The crime rate of the defectors was found to be two times higher than average of crime rate in South Korean society.
The main reason to escape from North Korea is to pursue "better life" in the 2000s while it was to "survive" in the 1990s. Over 50% of them become defectors to avoid difficulties in living and hungry. They escape from North Korea in family units with 3-5 members, rather than a single individual. It is due to "planned escape" organized by South Korean brokers who receive defection expenses from those defectors. North Korean defectors provide those brokers with 'escape expenses' which come from the governmental subsidy.
During the last ten years, About 20% of North Korean defectors stayed in South Korea have committed crimes twice much higher than the average crime rate committed by South Koreans. The National Police Agency (2007) reported that 678 criminals (40.2% of the total North Korean defectors) committed crimes of murder, rape, injury and violence.
In this study, 48 prisoners of North Korean defectors were analyzed as of Jun 20, 2010. They committed 51 crimes; 10 prisoners of 10 cases of murder crime, 12 prisoners of 13 cases of the violence except for murder, 17 prisoners of 18 cases of trade and abuse of the drug, 7 prisoners of 8 cases of property related crimes, and 3 prisoners of 3 cases of violation of the Road Traffic Act.
Compared with other crimes, murder cases committed by the defectors during the last ten years were relatively few. In this study, the number of murder crime case was ten cases. Skills of murder used by murders were very cruel and atrocious and its motives and causes were various.
The property related crimes occupied no more than 11% of the total criminal cases of the defectors. Those criminals committed simple fraud crime at the beginning stage of settlement in the society and soon after they adapted to the new system in South Korea, they committed delicate frauds related to subsidy or insurance premium by using their specialized knowledge and professional networks. These days, the defectors who live in either South Korea or China are committing drug crimes more often through their own networks. They sometimes commit drug crime to earn large amount of money easily in the capitalism society.
The subjects of this study have some socio-demographic characteristics: male defectors occupied 91.7% of the total number of defector prisoners, and those in the age of their thirties and forties occupies over 70%. At the average, they attended schools for 11.2 years equivalent to high school graduation in the South Korea. Most of them lived at cheap rental houses; half of them were unemployed or engaged in simple labor work. Average monthly income did not exceed one million Won equivalent to US$ 900 and were located to the poorest group in South Korea.
They had committed crime and been punished. More than half of them (56.9%) had ex-convict record. Among them, 31.4% prisoners had different types of criminal records, and 25.5% of them had same types of criminal record. The punishment most frequently shown in our data is the prison sentence with one-year to three years. It occupied 29.4% of the total number of punishment.
It took 30.5 months in average for the defecters to leave North Korea and to enter South Korea. Drug criminals stayed out of North Korea for 42.3 months in average - the longest stay among other crimes. This was because most of defectors who are dealing with drug needed to stay more than other criminal defectors to trade drug between North Korea and China while staying in third country and to enter South Korea. It took 37.8 months in average for those defectors who commit a crime for the first time in South Korea. The length of this period is closely related to the time that they adjust themselves into the social surroundings in regard to language and grow accustomed to domestic laws and rules.
According to their crime records, the defector-criminals who committed murder were male and showed some characteristics: hot-temper, aggressive, unemployed, and very poor. There are four types of murder committed by North Korean defectors in prison: murder caused by dissatisfaction for basic desire, murder for masculinity to show up, murder for cultural respect from others, and insane of accidental murder. Among all the ten murder cases, eight cases were committed by a criminal alone without a complice and half of them committed murder while being drunk. Nine of ten victims of murder cases were female and half of the places murder cases were occurred were bars or restaurants where defectors drank alcohol.
The violent crime consisted of 12 prisoners and 13 cases. Those who committed violent crimes, such as assault, rape, or robbery (excluding murder), had criminal carriers. They had more than three-times criminal records and committed them while being drunk. There are four types of violent crime in this study: crime for "living", crime for drinking, crime for hedonism, crime for cultural satisfaction.
Seven defector-prisoners committed eight property crimes. Three out of eight cases were fraud and all seven defectors were male. They committed same type of crime - fraud repeatedly. Their education careers stayed in North Korea and their employment rate in South Korea were higher than those who committed other crimes except fraud.
The drug crime consists of both drug trade and drug abuse. As their characteristics, drug crimes showed some characteristics: all cases had complice; drug trades took place through drug networks among North Korean defectors; the amount of drug trades was relatively large and systematically organized.
Three out of 48 defector-criminals were arrested on the charge of violation of the Road Traffic Act and driving while being drunken, and two of them had same type of previous criminal records.

4. Political Support and Preventative Measures

The current government policy for North Korean defectors are not enough to prevent and control defector-criminals. The government needs to pay more attention to the defectors and need to extra management for them who have difficulties at adjust themselves into the South Korean society. First, the government has to make change of policy from settlement policy in which defectors heavily rely on governmental subsidies to the policy which promotes defector's self-reliance and self-support. Second, 'customized' support policy is needed to meet characteristics of the defectors. Third, it is necessary to establish and reinforce the supporting networks of volunteers. Fourth, supporting service systems managed by the government as well as civil society need to be unified to control and support effectively. Finally, from an aspect of immigration and national security in which Korean society is surrounded by Japan, China, Russia, and is facing with north Korean military threats, it is needed to have more systematic management of immigration to prevent international drug trafficking in the name of defector's tourism.
In South Korea, people call those escaped and entered into South Korea "North Korean defectors." However, this calling includes some meaning of contempt and causes segregation or prejudice against them. The defectors need to be called as either 'an immigrant from North Korea' or 'the one who moves from North Korea' based on neutralized value judgement. In addition to the change of calling, the South Korean people shall be free from prejudice toward the defectors. The term of education for initial settlement shall be extended, and help service under operation as well as mentoring program for the defector shall give various kinds of information to let them adapt to the South Korean society. Further, a special organization shall be established to centralize job of the officials in charge of protection of the defectors that many organizations take care of.
The government shall keep records and strengthen control networks to manage the defectors effectively. Therefore, central government, local government and NGO shall integrate control of the defectors systematically to strengthen control network of the defectors. They can help the defectors effectively and efficiently and share information to control them with special care.

keyword: crimes of the defectors from North Korea, murder crime, violence crime, property related crimes, drug crime, survey of the literature, demographic characteristics, policies