This year’s UN · International Cooperation and Research for Crime Prevention
(XVI) was accomplished under the general supervision of the Director of the
International Cooperation Division, with six subprojects allocated to the International
Relations Team and the International Academic Research Team. Of the subprojects,
those related to UN · international cooperation were performed by the
International Relations Team, and those related to international academic events
and promotion were carried out by the International Academic Research Team.
This annual report outlines the overall strategy and allocation of the projects,
the performance and monitoring results of each strategy, and key highlights of
the subprojects. The project of UN · International Cooperation and Research for
Crime Prevention has three key objectives, namely ① cooperation with the UN
in international issues, ② building and consolidation of communication with
criminal judicial authorities and research institutions, and ③ preparation of
intellectual platforms in various forms.

The five-year-term plan of this project had three strategies: firstly, to
consolidate the international cooperation network to prevent crime; secondly,
to advance global research capability; and thirdly, to promote the research
outcome around the globe. The first strategy, to consolidate the international
cooperation network to prevent crime, aimed to strengthen the international
cooperation network with both the UNODC/UNPNI, and regional judicial
authorities around the globe in order to reinforce Korea’s status as a member
state of the UN and to help the nation play a role matching its status in the
international arena. The second strategy, to advance global research capability,
concerned preparing various intellectual platforms to introduce the latest works
and studies in criminal justice area of the globe to the nation. Finally the third
strategy, to promote the research outcome around the globe, aimed to create
a multilingual website along with developing promotional contents in English,
including releasing of various types of publications both online and offline. and
improving the current online platforms.

The general report analyzed the main results of the subprojects in each strategy,
and contained their progress status in the context of the coronavirus pandemic
and the result of monitoring the improvement of last year's limited project
performance.

The main results of each subproject, apart from the general report, are as
follows. [Subproject 1: Building a cooperation network with the UN and other
regional states] summarized the process of building an international network with
the UN and other Asia-Pacific states in order to prevent crimes, and the results
of such effort. Building a cooperation network with the UN is an important task
given that the world is more globalized than ever before, and there is a rising
need to find a proper measure to combat crimes as they have become increasingly
transnational these days. ‘Consolidating the international cooperation network’
is also critical to cope with growing transnational crimes, including crimes that
are new and evolving in both pattern and technique. In this context, the Korea
Institute of Criminology (KIC) is committed to building and expanding its
cooperation networks with not only the UN, but also many leading criminal justice
organizations and institutions in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and North
America, etc. ‘Analysis of the UNODC research and policy trend 2020’ examined
the studies concerning impacts and prospects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as
well as preventive actions to address drugs, corruption, and transnational crime.
‘Interaction and cooperation with the UN 2020’ looked into more concrete
accomplishments achieved through the cooperation with the UN/UNPNI, such
as the ‘14th Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice’, ‘KIC-UNODC
international joint study’, ‘participation in PNI Coordination Meetings’, and ‘KIC-TIJ
Expert Group Meeting (EGM)’. In addition, ‘Asia Pacific Expert Conference for
Criminal Justice' introduced the main features of the 1st Asia Pacific Conference
for Criminal Justice (APECCJ) with an eye towards promoting scholarly exchanges
with criminal justice experts and practitioners in the Asian-Pacific region. Some
of the prominent organizations that participated in this conference included the
Australia Institute of Criminology (AIC), a fellow PNI and an MOU partner; the
School of Regulations and Global Governance of the Australian National University;
the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ); and the Police Science Institute (PSI), a
domestic research institute affiliated with Korean police. The key subjects
discussed included the changing trends and patterns in crime brought out by
COVID-19; increases in domestic violence, especially violence against women due
to the lockdown as a measure against the spread of the coronavirus; impacts
of COVID-19 on organized crime; human right implications of the quarantine
measures against COVID-19, and changing trends in crime due to COVID-19.

‘The 7th KIC International Forum(KICIF)’ described the background of the
theme, 'Challenges of Cybercrime as Opportunities: Prevention, Cooperation and
Safety', and the overall preparation of the signature policy forum hosted by the
institute. This forum is composed of four themed sessions: overview of cybercrime,
cyber economic crime, cybersecurity, and cybersex crime. International criminal
justice experts attended for in-depth discussions concerning cybercrime
prevention and preparation of countermeasures.

[Subproject 2: Method to improve Korea's narcotic drugs policy through an
analysis of drug use in Southeast Asia] dealt with two primary subjects.

First, it examined the impact of the rapidly growing, illegal synthetic drug market in
Southeast Asia, and proved its interconnection with the Korean market. The
borders of Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam, known as the Golden Triangle,
have become the core of synthetic drug production, resulting in an overwhelming
supply of synthetic drugs to the markets across Asia-Pacific countries, including
Korea, Japan and Australia from 2015, but the situation has gotten worse for
the past few years. The plenitude in supply of illegal synthetic drugs across the
East and Southeast Asia reveals enforcing drug policies by blocking the supply
of illegal drugs and trafficking or imposing harsh punishments on drug consumers
have limited effects as the flow of illegal drugs into Korea remains high.

The countries' attempts to end the supply of narcotic drugs have not been
very successful. In addition, their policy of imposing harsh punishments on
narcotic consumption even caused an increase in detention rates of petty crime
offenders and prison overcrowding, rather than crime prevention, resulting in
human right violation, poor sanitation and hygiene, and high rates of recidivism.
The key argument of this research was that given the growing interconnection
between Southeast Asia and the Korean narcotic drug market, the former’s
effective legislation and enforcement of narcotics control policy would be useful
for Korea for developing its own policy, and the government of Korea should
work with relevant international organizations and civil societies to support the
Southeast Asian countries’ campaign against narcotic drug abuse. This research
introduced ① UNODC-sponsored Mekong Memorandum of Understanding concerning
narcotic drug control, ② sharing of hands-on experience through the UN Commission
on Narcotic Drugs (CDN)’s publication of crime trend report and Good Practices
Portal, and ③ the WHO and UNODC’s initiative of Treatment and Care for People
with Drug Use Disorders. In addition, as an important area to support in the near
future, this research emphasized reinforcing control over precursor substances and
offering to legal professional education and training of precursor substances control.

[Subproject 3: Comparison of Korea and the US to improve cybercrime
measuring system]
compared the classification and measuring systems of Korean
and the US police, respectively, and sought an official crime statistics measuring
system that can realize a more viable evidence-based prevention in cyber space.
Through various means such as literature review and expert interview, this
research has concluded that Korea has a more comprehensive and meticulous
cybercrime measuring system, and has put a lot of effort to improve the system
which is suitable to the international standards.

Domestically, in order to compare the level of effectiveness in coping with
cybercrime, the project research highlighted the need to establish index cybercrimes
which would help a long-term comparison of crime trends. Originally, index
crimes refer to those used in measuring a country’s quality of life and comparing
it to that of other countries – for instance, murder and robbery, etc. To collect
statistical data continuously and prove the validity of the statistics, setting up
a list of index cybercrimes is necessary. The research further suggested that Korea
has the ability to lead an initiative in setting up index cybercimes as it has
collected relatively larger and detailed body of statistics so far.

[Subproject 4: Virtual Forum against Cybercrime (VFAC) renewal] aimed to
assess possibilities of renewing the VFAC project and seek proper directions of
the project by reviewing the project’s current performance and its present state
of operation. The ‘Analysis of VFAC SWOT’ examined the need and methodology to
analyze SWOT in order to prepare the renewal strategy of the VFAC project, and
conducted a systematic SWOT analysis, therefore concluded the four strategies
of SO, ST, WO, and WT, as the directions of the renewa

The ‘long-term research collaboration with the UN PNI for cybercrime and
transnational organized crime (TOC)’ was then determined to be the most suitable
strategy to reduce risks, shortcomings and maximize the institute’s strengths and
opportunities. The key strategies matching the identity of the KIC and the fulfilling
its purposes of collaboration with the UN and other countries around the world
include expanding the VFAC’s current system, which focuses on education and
training, to broad topics of cybercrime and transnational organized crime,
therefore changing the current target audience to experts who are interested in
the subjects, and modifying the function of the platform from offering education
and training to providing expert information such as procedures and outcomes
of international joint research.

[Subproject 5: the International Journal of Criminal Justice] is a report that
summarized the publication process of the International Journal of Criminal
Justice (IJCJ), which was first issued to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the KIC.
As an English academic journal for criminal justice policy, the IJCJ contained
evidence-based study articles that can provide the concept to criminal justice
policy and legislation. Furthermore, it was made to serve as a forum for
international discussion in which scholars and practitioners in the relevant fields,
both domestic and international, can actively exchange ideas.
In 2020, the KIC made major changes in three aspects in order to establish
a well-organized operation system. First, the institute increased the number of
its editorial committee members and prepared a database to expand the expert
pool for peer review to prevent articles from being allocated to certain committee
members or specific reviewers. Secondly, the peer review process has been
performed on a regular basis in addition to the ‘online first’ service and DOI,
so that the IJCJ could give enough time to both reviewers and authors, and provide
readers with an access to the works as soon as publication decisions are made.

Finally, the KIC is planning to build an online IJCJ platform for the convenience
of contributors, reviewers, and organizers in the peer review process. Also, this
year, a new menu for the journal will be added to the English version of the
website and a separate online platform will be completed by 2022.

[Subproject 6: International promotion of research performance] reported the
process of publishing research results and other publications in English both on
and off-line which resulted in their dissemination abroad, and the process of
updating the KIC’s multilingual website in a timely manner.

The ‘Trends and Policies in Criminal Justice(TPCJ)’ started its first publication
this year to make up for the shortcomings of the KIC Research in Brief. Reports
with international topics were selected and translated in detail in the form of
an article. A total of nine reports were published and distributed after the initial
release plan of one per month. At least 700 entities, including relevant government
agencies and academia, received the TPCJ. For international readers, a separate
e-mail database of experts, scholars professionals, and MOU institutes was used.
The TPJI is also planning to expand the distribution target through monitoring
its current distribution situation.

Meanwhile, the core value of the multilingual website, which would be
restructured in accordance with advisory meetings with experts, was established
as “sharing and communication”. The goals of this reconstruction project were
set as ‘improvement of convenience’, ‘content development for multilingual
website’, ‘increase in expertise of website content’, ‘reinforcement of website promotion’,
‘establishment of monitoring system surrounding the multilingual website’, and
‘strengthening of the stability in website management’. Around the end of the
first quarter of 2021, the English-language website is expected to be organized
with menus in the following order as the reconstruction would be almost
completed; Topics, Publications, Networks, Events, and About Us. The visibility
of the banner, which highlights the entire screen, is enhanced and the
time-efficiency of users is increased as tagging of facts and figures is available
on the entire website.