Lee calls for police to crack down on crimes preying on working class

President Lee Myung-bak on Friday called for police to crack down on crimes that prey on working-class citizens and the socially weak, saying the institution has now been granted more investigative leeway from the prosecution. "Now, police have become a main body of investigation," Lee said in a speech during a ceremony marking the 66th Police Day. He was referring to a law revision earlier this year that empowers police to start preliminary investigations on their own without oversight by the prosecution. The revision was a hot issue in South Korea earlier this year as prosecutors protested strongly en masse, seeing the move as restricting their traditional control of police investigations. The then prosecutor-general resigned in protest of the revision. Prosecutors and police have recently been at odds again as the Justice Ministry and the prosecution proposed an enforcement decree of the revision in a way that significantly narrows the scope of police-initiated investigations. During his speech, Lee stressed the importance of uprooting crimes that prey on ordinary people, such as phone fraud and illegal multi-layer marketing, as well as crimes against the disabled, children and women, and corruption involving influential people. "We have to thoroughly crack down on these crimes to protect the rights of ordinary people," he said. "Crimes against the socially weak are a shameful facet of our society. These crimes should be uprooted more thoroughly than any other crimes." Lee also said that the government will try to improve the working conditions of police, including increasing wages and staff numbers.