S. Korea 'paparazzi' housewives hound law-breakers

[unreal.livejournal.com]

At first glance, middle-aged Seoul housewife Jennifer Chung hardly looks like a bounty hunter tracking down lawbreakers.

But every morning, after sending her two sons and husband off to school and work, she sets out in search of local scofflaws -- such as cram school teachers, restaurateurs or beauty salon owners.

"Some of them charge parents more than state-set tuition limits, don't disclose on the menu the origin of food they serve, or give skincare treatments which only doctors are allowed to perform," Chung, 54, told AFP.

"These are all against the law...I need evidence to report them to the authorities," she said, sporting a high-definition camcorder hidden in her purse with the lens peeking through a tiny hole.


On a typical undercover mission, Chung poses as a regular customer, videotapes conversations or scenes at offending establishments and sends the videos to authorities.

Each time she collects cash rewards from various departments which add up to more than two million won ($1,700) a month.

Chung is far from alone.

Many South Koreans, especially middle-aged women, have joined a growing number of "paparazzi" snoopers. They cash in by videotaping minor lawbreaking by fellow citizens, instead of the lives of the rich and famous.

With the government continually expanding such rewards, schools for snoopers are thriving. They teach pupils how to stalk their prey and get them on film, and even how to play the innocent to dodge suspicion.

"This has become a pretty lucrative industry now...some people are doing this as a full-time job," Moon Seung-Ok, founder of Mismiz, a paparazzi school in Seoul, told AFP.

The number of students spikes during economic slowdowns when housewives seek ways to supplement family incomes, he said.

Moon himself is a longtime paparazzi focusing on everything from speeding drivers to drug dealers. He said snoopers help officials and the police, who are too understaffed and overworked to enforce regulations.

"Some people accuse us of having no conscience or being a rat, making money by taking advantage of others' weakness," he told four nervous-looking students -- all housewives in their 40s or 50s -- during a class this month.

But there's no need at all to feel guilty, he told them repeatedly.

"These are criminals, making pots of money by breaking laws. They deserve punishment!" Moon said, describing the job of snoopers as "kind of a patriotic duty...with benefits".

A textbook he wrote list scores of violations linked to rewards, ranging from dropping cigarette butts or dumping trash in the wrong bag to prostitution and insurance fraud.

The most common targets in the education-obsessed nation are cram school owners who overcharge parents or run late-night classes, breaking state rules aimed at curbing spending on private education and pressure on kids.

"It's most popular because cram schools are everywhere, and housewives can easily act like ordinary parents asking for quotes for tuition," said Moon.

The education ministry said it had paid 3.4 billion won ($2.9 million) in rewards since the system was adopted in July 2009, with one person alone raking in nearly 300 million won by making more than 920 reports.

A cat-and-mouse game has developed between snoopers and their increasingly wary prey.

Chung often sneaks into a cram school in the evening and hides in a toilet for hours, until teachers have locked the door from inside to try to keep out the snoopers.

"Janitors often catch me in the toilet. I tell them I had sudden diarrhoea and urgently needed to go to the bathroom," Chung said.

Critics say snoopers are squeezing mom-and-pop businesses trying to survive in tough times.

Cho Young-Hwan, spokesman for South Korea's cram school association, called them "merciless predators" who forced many small cram schools to shut down.

Many schools are pressured to run late-night classes because parents demand that their kids study until late despite the government ban, he said.

"These professional bounty hunters are turning a place of children's education into a playground for their profiteering," Cho told AFP.

Oh Chang-Soo, a law professor at Jeju National University, called the situation worrying.

He told AFP the rewards had become "a cash cow for bounty hunters" and did not encourage a healthy civic spirit or genuine sense of justice.

"These paparazzi...set up a trap and eagerly wait until someone violates a rule. A practice like this will only fan mistrust among members of society," Oh said.

Source: afp

Comments

[ifuckingluvya.livejournal.com]

"kind of a patriotic duty...with benefits".

LOL

negl tho...i think this is pretty awesome

[lil-rach-angel.livejournal.com]

I doubt it's really the "mom and pop" businesses that are just getting the squeeze. It's also amazing how anyone that reinforces the rules (whether paid or not) is automatically put into a bad light when it's really businesses that need to tame their ways.

[kittycurious.livejournal.com]

Many schools are pressured to run late-night classes because parents demand that their kids study until late despite the government ban

This is the one part that bothers me, as I'm sure a lot of otherwise upstanding businesses were pressured into holding late night classes to appease the parents, or to stay competitive with the ones that did. So you have people who are just trying to meet their costumers demands or stay competitive getting punished.
Maybe this will help kids, though? Maybe they won't be forced to study so late if all the cram schools stop having night classes, and the parents won't be able to say a peep about it. Though, I'm sure they'll just make their kids study at home then.

[jaded-skys.livejournal.com]

Nope, parent's will always complain and it will never be THEIR fault for anything. That's the general mind-set.

[kittycurious.livejournal.com]

Maybe it will lead to the Government adjusting the law, then? The idea that it's never the parent's fault bugs me.

[hyperballad.livejournal.com]

Sing it, sister.

Re: The panopticon as metaphor

[modestgoddess79.livejournal.com]

the Matrix is real

[oonalala.livejournal.com]

This sounds like one of those things that looks good on paper but eventually will go very very wrong.

It's one thing for someone to reap an occasional reward for turning in lawbreakers that they stumble across, but an entirely different thing to have large numbers of people going out to find lawbreakers for the sole purpose of turning a profit. I'd worry about particularly greedy people taking unnecessary risks to catch a crime on video, harassing/stalking normally law abiding citizens or businesses in hopes of catching someone, or entrapment. Besides, it just reeks of those times in history when neighbors start turning each other in for imagined offenses against the state (Nazi Germany, McCarthy Era USA, etc)

[ghost-whisper.livejournal.com]

Well, on the one hand, laws, 'petty' or not, were not made to be broken, so pointing out an issue to the police is necessary from time to time.

On the other hand - I am acutely uncomfortable with the idea of untrained civilian citizens walking around spying/harassing, and just generally being on the look out for 'offenders' of *any* sort. Even police, PIs, and military have their share of people who join for the power trip of being in charge, but at least there are recruitment filters, training, and regulations/licenses *behind* these groups. Having unregulated citizens doing so -as a hobby/job no less!- is just asking for breach of privacy, as is likely to attract *hordes* of people trying to make up for a perceived lack of power/influence in society and their daily lives by looking for 'villains' to fingerpoint.