Neighborhood watch units now expected to do police work
Unauthorized civilian neighborhood watch unit, so-called Inminban, is taking over some police work in North Korea, while the real police monitors residents (Image: KCTV)
Police in North Korea are handing responsibility for local crime to neighborhood watch units. Untrained residents are even being held accountable for crimes in their communities, which is causing confusion.
One source told us that, after a murder in Jungsin-dong, in the Sosong District of Pyongyang, the district People’s Committee and the Ministry of Security blamed the local government head, the security officer responsible for creating the neighborhood watch unit, and the resident who was on guard duty at the time. This has reportedly created a shock wave in the district.
“Maintaining public order is the job of the Ministry of Security,” the informant said. “Nobody understands why the people living there have to bear collective responsibility.”
In the wake of the crime, Maeng Dong-ho, the office manager for Jungsin-dong, was dismissed, and Kim Eun-chul, the officer in charge, was discharged from the Ministry of Security for failing to organize the neighborhood watch properly.
The resident on guard duty, when the murder happened, was paraded on stage during an ideological struggle session organized by the local Party Committee.
The murder happened in July when an unidentified man walked into an apartment building, past the guard post, and killed someone in a first-floor apartment. The man was middle-aged and knew the victim. The actual relationship and motive are not known.
What is baffling residents is that, instead of investigating the case, the Pyongyang City Party Committee and the city’s Ministry of Security have focused on the apartment’s weak security, blaming the lax guard system for allowing the murderer to enter the building. Authorities quickly produced educational videos emphasizing the need to strengthen neighborhood watch units.
People were required to watch them nationwide, which is how we heard about the murder and how we know the murderer apparently knew his victim.
In North Korea’s administrative system, the inminban (literally, people’s hamlet) is the smallest unit. Several inminbans form a dong, and several dongs combine to create a city district or rural county.
The inminban is typically composed of 20 to 30 households. The neighborhood watch guards used to be elderly people who stayed at home. They would occasionally check the neighborhood and, in the case of apartments, manned a small guard post on the first floor.
From 2013, Kim Jong-un started to emphasize the inminban role and ordered the construction of guard posts in densely populated areas throughout the country. Residents were then required to take turns monitoring the neighborhood 24/7. They functioned like a “human CCTV” system and kept duty logs.
“This doesn’t really help maintain social stability,” the source said. “It’s absurd to expect residents to catch thieves and murderers that even the police can’t apprehend.”
The source expressed frustration, saying, “Performing the human CCTV duty means staying up all night and then going straight to work in the morning. People are utterly exhausted.”
The main task of security officers now seems to be to go around and inspect these human CCTV posts.
When a security officer turns up and finds nobody on duty or catches someone neglecting their duty, the neighborhood head is summoned to the local Party Committee and harshly criticized. This pressure is then passed back down to the lax resident.
“Seeing security officers running around inspecting neighborhood guard posts like this instead of doing proper police work makes it feel like the world has gone completely mad,” the source said.
Zane is a defector from North Korea. Before defecting in 2022, he worked at a state-run North Korean company based in Russia. Prior to his assignment in Russia, he had worked at the external affairs department of a company affiliated with the DPRK's Escort Bureau. He graduated from Pyongyang University of Architecture.
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