The geographic concentration of foreigners and immigrants expands with the increase and long-term residence of immigrants. While Korea's multi-cultural policy has been rapidly developing and expanding since 2006, foreigner/immigrant concentration has not been recognized by policy makers. In this situation, it is imperative to examine the crime and safety status in foreigner concentrated areas, examine related issues, uate the effectiveness of current policy interventions in these areas, and design effective policy directions.
In this respect, this study aims to examine the current status and issues related to crime and safety in foreigner concentrated areas through various data collection methods and to derive related policy agendas. In order to achieve the research goal, we 1) reviewed relevant prior studies, 2) reviewed current status and trends of foreigners and foreigner concentrated areas, 3) examined crime vulnerability levels of foreigner concentrated areas, 4) analyzed crime data related to foreigners and foreigner concentrated areas, 5) examined characteristics of criminal and environmental issues in foreigner concentrated areas, 6) examined perceptions of safety, 7) identified residents' safety needs, 8) reviewed policies of foreign immigrants in several foreign countries, and 9) derived policy suggestions for improving safety in foreigner concentrated areas.
In this study, we adopted various research methods including 1) literature review, 2) analysis of official statistics data, 3) FGI targeting residents in the foreigner concentrated areas, police officers, foreigner-related officials, and activists in related NGOs, and 4) field study at 5 foreigner concentrated areas, and 5) a survey of residents in foreigner concentrated areas.
Findings are described as below. The number of foreigners staying in Korea increased steadily to 2,367,607 in 2018, and the ratio of foreigners in total population increased from 0.11% in 1990 to 4.57% in 2018. The characteristics of the composition of foreign residents are as follows. First, the background of migrant youth is increasing. Second, foreigners usually came to Korea for jobs and better wage conditions. Third, foreigners are staying in Korea for a long time, and tend to be settled. Fourth, as of 2017, 876,665 foreigners lived in Korea, and more than doubled in the last nine years, and the increase in foreign residents is driven by the increase in Korean-Chinese. Fifth, a large number of foreigner concentrated areas consist of Korean-Chinese.
At the regional level, the ratios of foreigners in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Chungnam, and Jeju exceeded the national average of 3.6%, and 60.3% of foreign residents concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area, which was more severe than the domestic population concentration(49.6%). In Si/gun/gu level, the concentration of foreign residents is increasing year by year, and the separation index of Siheung City, Gimpo-si, Ansan Danwon-gu, and Guro-gu exceeded 0.5, indicating a very severe separation. Eup/myun/dong, which has more than 10% of foreigners or 5,000 foreign residents, increased to 228 areas compared to 2014. The percentage of foreign residents in Wongok-dong and Daelim-dong was 77.7% and 50.4%, respectively. Foreign workers (E-9) are concentrated in the area behind industrial complexes, while international students are concentrated around university districts. Korean-Chinese(F-4) and visiting employment (H-2) are concentrated in the low-cost residential areas of large cities such as Seoul and Gyeonggi-do. Foreigner concentrated areas can be divided into densely populated areas with over 40% of the total population and less than 40%.
The socio-structural conditions of foreigner concentrated areas are heterogeneous rather than homonenous among the types of dense areas. The social relations between the Korean and foreign residents in the foreigner concentrated areas were weak and asymmetric. For example, compared with foreign residents, Koreans were more likely to have no contact with their foreign neighbors, and they had much less in-depth relationships with their foreign neighbors.
The social distance of Korean residents living in foreigner concentrated areas differs according to the nationality of foreign residents. The social distance from the Chinese was the highest, and the social distance from the American was the lowest. On the other hand, foreigners’ social distance from Koreans is much lower than Koreans’ social distance from foreigners.
Local and foreign residents in the foreigner concentrated areas perceived both physical and social disorders as serious. Violation of the basic social orders was more frequent among residents living in areas with high foreigner concentration.
A field survey was conducted on five foreigner concentrated areas. According to the results of the hot spot analyses, crimes by foreigners are concentrated around particular streets or spaces, such as around subway stations, multi-culture streets, or traditional markets, and out of those spaces, there are very weak or almost no hot spots.
In the field study on commercial streets, we found that the J-dong in Siheung showed the highest number of 'unsatisfactory' uation criterion, and the crime prevention environment was relatively weak, followed by Yeongdeungpo-gu D-dong, G-dong of Guro-gu, and W-dong of Ansan-si. Regarding streets in residential areas and residential facilities, J-dong in Siheung-si was vulnerable to the security problems without any 'satisfactory' criterion. Crime-prevention768 purpose CCTVs were frequently found in G-ro, Guro-gu, whereas CCTVs did not show up frequently in the study area of J-dong, Siheung. For parks, a park at J-dong in Siheung-si received a little more favorable uation, but the difference in the uation was not large.
The number of foreigners staying in Korea increased about three times from about 750,000 in 2005 to about 2.18 million in 2017, while the number of arrests for foreign criminals increased by four times from 9,042 to 33,905. However, the proportion of foreigners staying in the total population is larger than the proportion of foreign suspects in the number of arrests, and the gap is gradually increasing. In addition, the number of arrests per 100,000 population shows that Koreans are more than twice as large as foreigners.
In the analysis of the foreign criminal arrest data from 19 police departments in charge of the 'foreign-affair safety zone' designated by the National Police Agency, we found that the distribution of the foreign criminal arrest index according to the ratio of foreign residents showed an inverted U-shaped pattern.
In order to examine the effect of concentration of foreign residents on crime rate, we analyzed the relationship between crime rate and characteristics of foreign residents in urban areas of Korea. We found that the increase in the number of marriage immigrants among foreign residents is related to the decrease in the incidence of five major crimes, and the increase in the proportion of foreign workers is related to the increase in the incidence of five major crimes. Sexual offenses were found to decrease as the proportion of foreign residents increased.
Using the survey data, we analyzed the offenses of Koreans and foreigners living in foreigner concentrated areas. The offenses included: 1) fights and vandalism in restaurants or shops, 2) dien and dash, 3) burglary, 4) robbery, and 5) violence. Out of 2,000 foreigners living in densely populated areas, 2.0% of people experienced at least one offense, and Korean residents (2.38%) were somewhat higher than foreign residents (1.75%). In all five types of crime, the Koreans experienced higher crime rate than the foreign residents.
Investigating victimization by pickpocketing or snatching, robbery, vandalism, burglary, robbery, violence, sexual crime, we found that at least 4.95% of respondents has been victimized. The victimization rate of Korean residents (5.25%) was slightly higher than that of foreign residents (4.75%). However, when comparing the victimization rate by detailed crime type, the victimization rate of foreign residents except for vandalism was higher than that of Korean residents.
For the perception of safety and uation of crime risks, we found that foreigner concentrated areas are considered to be crime-ridden areas, but there is little concern about the crime risks of residents living in the areas. Second, Korean residents perceived their neighborhood as unsafe from crime compared to foreigners, and were more afraid of walking alone in night. Third, comparing the results of this survey with the 2016 Crime Victimization Survey, the general fears of crime among inhabitants of foreigner concentrated areas were higher than those of the national population. But, when they answered by types of crime, the fears of Koreans in foreigner concentrated areas were lower than those of the national population. Lastly, although the generally-known factors influencing crime risk perception were controlled, regional characteristic variables related to the concentration of foreigners had a significant effect on the neighborhood safety uation.
In general, foreign affairs and public safety units in the Korean National Police provide security services for foreigner concentrated areas. In foreigner concentrated areas, localized services may be provided at the police box and police center level by public safety units. Foreign affairs units cooperate with public organizations and NGOs that provide services to foreigners, such as multicultural family support centers and civic groups In addition, the Korean National Police has designated “foreign-affair safety zones” in 20 regions to respond to security demands related to foreigners and foreigners' concentration. Meanwhile, the government and local governments are pursuing various policy projects for social integration of foreigners and multicultural families based on the Plan of Foreign Policy and Multicultural Family Policy. Some of these projects address safety issues in foreign and foreign dense areas.
Residents living in foreigner concentrated areas do not have much experience or participation in police security activities or government safety related programs. Despite low program participation and utilization rates, Koreans and foreigners said that the current security and safety programs need to be pursued continuously.
To explore the policy needs of residents to improve the safety of foreigner concentrated areas, we analyzed the necessity of 16 policies including social integration policy, foreigner support policy, and foreigner control policy. In general, Korean residents demanded a control policy, while foreign residents favored social integration policy.
Immigration policies were reviewed in the United States (New York), Canada (Toronto), Germany (Berlin), and France (Paris). In all four cases, the management of foreigner concentrated areas is addressed through a multifaceted policy approach. In addition, we found that social integration policies are implemented to help the migrants recover their economic and social vulnerabilities, and public safety programs and urban developments are simultaneously performed; and foreign countries have different approaches on social integration policy, public safety policy, and urban development policy in foreigner concentrated areas, depending on the history and experience context of immigration.
Based on the above findings, we discussed several police implications: 1) the government should develop policy plan for foreigner concentrated areas, 2) social integration of foreigner concentrated areas should be dealt with by the local government level, 3) CPTED perspective has some implications regarding safety issues in foreigner concentrated areas, and 4) we suggested several countermeasures for disorder and crime problems in foreigner concentrated areas.