As the number of North Korean refugees who entered the country exceeded 30,000 in November 2016, North Korean refugees became one of the main members of Korean society, which is gradually transforming into a multicultural society. Since settlement of migrants is a major tasks of the society that embraces migrants, it is necessary to identify the factors that impede their complete settlement and prepare countermeasures for them. Among those, crime is suggested as one of the main causes of deterring settlement of migrants. In addition, fear of crime is suggested as one of the causes of deterioration of quality of life as well as settlement of migrants.
This study examined the effect of acculturation among North Korean refugees living in South Korea on the fear of crime. Even though researches on fear of crime among the various types of the vulnerable, such as marriage migrants in Korea, have been conducted recently, most of previous researches on fear of crime in Korea have focused on South Korean residents by far. What is more, research focused on influence of acculturation on fear of crime are relatively less conducted. For these reasons, it aimed at examining the relationship between vulnerability and fear of crime among North Korean refugees focused on mediation effect of acculturation.
Previous researches on influencing factors of fear of crime have concentrated on experience of victimization, community, perceived vulnerabilities and other various variables. This study set vulnerability as independent variable and acculturation as mediating variable and examined their influences on fear of crime among North Korean refugees. lower dimensions of vulnerability consisted of possibility of victimization, seriousness of victimization, lack of defense and attractiveness. In addition, lower dimensions of acculturation consisted of acceptance of South Korean culture and maintenance of North Korean culture. The results of research analysis are as follows.
Firstly, 91.3% of the respondents were female (n=209) and 8.7% of those were male(n=19). The proportion of men and women was about 1:9, which is consistent with the fact that the sex ratio of the North Korean refugees living in South Korea. In case of age of the respondents, 28.1% was in their 30s and below(n=64), 36.8%(n=84) was in their 40s to 50s and 36.8% was their 60s and above. The marriage status showed a high ratio of single(70%). Through the interview with the respondents, the surveyed individuals who are singles or have children reported to hope to get married to other North Korean refugees or to have North Korean daughter-in-law or son-in-law.
Level of education in North Korea appeared that a diploma with secondary school was most frequently reported and that in South Korea was most frequently reported in case of lack of South Korean schooling and bachelor degree both. Also, 80.7% of the respondents received the subsidies from the government and 73.2% of the respondents reported that their income was less than one million won per month. Considering their economic status, North Korea refugees perceived their standard of living in South Korea is much lower than that in their home country.
It was shown that it took a year and six months to arrive South Korea after leaving North Korea, however, there were two contrasting trends in time span. Respondents who left North Korea before 2000s reported much longer time in arriving, on the other hand, those who left after 2000s reported even shorter time in arriving. Especially after the year of 2010, there have been a considerable number of cases in which the North Korean refugees arrived in South Korea after less than one year.
The overwhelming proportion of respondents who had experienced victimization directly or indirectly was the crime of fraud. Furthermore, the number of direct experience of victimization was 2.5 times as high as that of indirect experience of victimization. Fraud was most frequently reported type of crime as well. In particular, there were four cases of responding more than three times in the case of fraud, and three cases of responding more than 10 times in the case of other crimes, which indicated the repeated victimization.
Secondly, differences in acculturation by sociodemographic variables appeared. Unlike the fact that female respondents showed higher level of acceptance of South Korean culture, male respondents showed higher level of maintenance of culture from their home country, North Korea. This result was in concordance with the previous findings, but the gender difference was not statistically significant. Age was statistically significant in acceptance of South Korean culture. The younger they were, the more actively they participated in immigrant community, South Korea. Difference by age in maintenance of North Korean culture was not statistically significant. The difference in acculturation by marital status was statistically significant and the separation was the highest. Differences in acculturation by level of education in North Korea were statistically significant. Of those, respondents with degree from graduate school had the highest scores on acculturation. However, there was no statistically significant difference in both levels of acculturation and maintenance of North Korean culture by education in South Korea. On contrary, it influenced a significant difference in acceptance of South Korean culture. Last, it was found that there was no statistically significant difference among the levels of acculturation, the acceptance of South Korea culture, and the maintenance of North Korean culture by the economic status.
Thirdly, the results of analyzing the fear of crime among North Korean refugees by demographic and sociological characteristics are as follows. First, there was a statistically significant difference in the fear of crime by gender and marital status. Female showed higher level of fear of crime compared to their counterpart, and the unmarried showed higher level of fear of crime compared to the married ones.
The differences in fear of crime by the level of education in North Korea and that in South Korea was statistically significant in total level of fear of crime, general fear of crime and specific fear of crime, respectively. On contrary to education, age did not have a significant influence on both types of fear of crime. Economic status had a significant influence on total level of crime of fear, however, it did not have a statistically significant influence on general fear of crime and specific fear of crime.
Fourthly, in analyzing the influence of vulnerability on fear of crime, vulnerability showed a large amount of influence on fear of crime as it explained the 27.8% of the phenomena(F=9.116, p=.000). Among the lower dimensions of vulnerability, possibility of victimization and attractiveness were statistically significant.
Lastly, the analysis of the difference in the fear of crime by the type of acculturation showed a statistically significant difference in general fear of crime. Among the types of acculturation used in this study, the marginalized type showed the highest level of general fear of crime followed by the assimilation type and the integrated type. In other words, the lower the level of acceptance of South Korean culture appeared, the higher fear of crime they perceived. However, in examining the influence of acculturation on general fear of crime, variables affecting general fear appeared to be gender and marital status and any other variables related to acculturation were statistically significant.
Based on these findings, the implications of this study are as follows. First, this study attempted a new theory of acculturation theory among the factors affecting the fear of crime among North Korean refugees. However, it appeared that the mediating effect of acculturation was lower than the effect of vulnerability, suggesting the the possibility of incorporating implications from the previous researches into the crime prevention program for North Korean refugees. First, the fact that acculturation has little influence on fear of crime suggests that the daily life experiences of North Korean refugees in South Korea do not differ much from the those of their native country. As pointed out by Lee et al., (2015), which investigated South Korean media use of North Korean citizens, North Korean government has controlled the use of the Internet and other media to control their citizens. In spite of national control on media, the distribution of South Korean media and its contents has been brisk since private markets, so-called Jangmadang, are activated after the food crisis in 1990s. In addition to this, language did not hinder the adaptation of North Korean refugees to South Korea. Considering these factors, acculturation did not have a significant influence on fear of crime among North Korean refugees.
Rather, perception on vulnerability, which was independent variable in this study, showed much greater influence on fear of crime. In particular, influences of the possibility of victimization and attractiveness were relatively higher than other variables.
The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of vulnerability on fear of crime among North Korean refugees and that of acculturation among them, targeting the regions of Seoul and Kyunggi province where most of North Korean refugees reside. Thus, the results from this study may provide implications for national policy on the adaptation of North Korean refugees and for crime prevention programs targeted them.
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