South Korea's prosecution service is expanding the scope of its "statement analysis" — a procedure used to assess the credibility of sex crime victims' testimony — from cases involving child and disabled victims to those involving adult victims. The move is interpreted as an effort to more systematically verify the consistency and reliability of victim statements, given that sex crimes typically lack physical evidence and rely heavily on testimony as key evidence.
According to legal sources on Tuesday, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office revised its internal "Statement Analysis Regulations" on Nov. 21. The amendment adds victims of sex crime cases to the scope of statement analysis. Under the previous rules, the analysis was limited to sex crime victims under age 13, victims with intellectual disabilities, and child abuse victims under age 18. With the revision, statements from adult victims of sex crimes can now also be subject to analysis.
Ahead of the expansion, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office conducted a pilot program from April to August last year, applying statement analysis to adult sex crime victim cases. In August last year, the office also presented its "research results on expanding the scope of statement analysis" at the European Association of Psychology and Law (EAPL) conference in Lithuania, continuing related discussions.
Statement analysis is an investigative support procedure that examines the credibility of victim testimony using psychological, linguistic, and behavioral science techniques. It is conducted at the request of frontline prosecutors' offices and has been mainly used in sex crimes and abuse cases against children and persons with disabilities, where victim testimony serves as key evidence in the absence of physical proof. Between 100 and 200 analyses are conducted annually, used as reference material for indictment decisions during investigations or for explaining statement credibility in court.
Not all cases, however, are referred for statement analysis. Cases are excluded when communication is deemed difficult due to limited intellectual or verbal capacity, when the victim is being diagnosed or treated for a mental illness, when statements may have been distorted by medication, or when statements are considered significantly compromised due to the long lapse of time since the incident.
The challenge lies in the fact that while the scope of work is expanding, the human resources base to handle it remains weak. Taking workload into account, the prosecution service increased the number of statement analysts from 12 in 2021 to 22 last year, with one additional hire this year. However, only three of the total are regular full-time employees, while about 90 percent work as public service workers on indefinite-term contracts.
"Most statement analysts are highly qualified professionals holding master's degrees or higher, but their status remains that of public service workers," a legal source said. "Despite the high level of expertise required, their treatment and status are unstable, leading to departures every year." The source added, "Following the abolition of the Prosecutors' Office, the launch of the Major Crimes Investigation Agency and the Public Prosecution Agency has been announced, but it has not yet been determined where statement analysts will be affiliated. To operate the system in a stable manner, the issues of affiliation, status, and full-time employment need to be sorted out first."
