South Korea's random 'Mudjima' stabbings put mental health stigma, lack of support in focus

Inequality and mental illness stigma are in the spotlight in South Korea, as a wave of random violent crimes that seemingly have no motive has authorities proposing locking people away for life without parole to deter offenders.

A 22-year-old man was stabbed to death - and three others in their 30s were wounded - near a Seoul subway station on July 21 in one of the latest Mudjima (Don't Ask Why) attacks to hit the country. Police last week charged 33-year-old Cho Seon, who was previously unknown to the victims, with the stabbings.

"I tried my best to make a living, but nothing came of it," the jobless suspect reportedly told police interrogators. "I am unhappy and I wanted to make others unhappy too."

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Cho - who complained of frustrations stemming from the breakdown of family relationships, social maladjustment, heartbreak and economic struggles - had been sent to a juvenile correctional facility 14 times in the past and charged with physical violence three times.

Less than two weeks after the attack that Cho was charged with, a young man in Seongnam city stole his father's car and rammed it into a group of pedestrians near a subway stop, leaving one woman brain-dead.

The man, who reportedly has schizoid personality disorder, then exited the car and went into a department store where he stabbed nine shoppers, including a woman who later died from her wounds.

Police say the suspect, Choi Won-jong, had looked up news of the first attack before he set off on his own rampage.

A rare nationwide stop-and-search sweep by police in the days following the Seongam attack resulted in the arrest of 145 people over the space of a week for carrying weapons - all knives, due to South Korea's strict gun controls.

A police report submitted to parliament on Monday showed that three random assaults on strangers were carried out every day in South Korea over the first half of the year. Mudjima attacks have officially been categorised by the police as "crimes of abnormal motives" since the classification was created in 2022.

The random nature of the attacks in public places has fuelled anxiety among South Koreans and shattered a generally held perception in the country that crowded areas are safe.

"Whenever I leave a subway station to change to a commuter bus, I find myself looking back to make sure there's no stranger following me," 62-year-old homemaker Park Min-jung said.

Choi Kyu-min, a 28-year-old office worker, said he commuted to work through the COEX exhibition and convention centre in Gangnam district, the prosperous southern part of Seoul that is always crowded.

"In the past, I used to feel safe when passing through these places, but now I am all the more afraid of becoming a target of a violent attack," he said.

Police commandos toting submachine guns could be seen near the posh Gangnam subway station on August 6 - a rare scene in the South Korean capital, which boasts one of the lowest crime rates in the world.

That same day, seven people were injured in a stampede at Gangnam sparked by a mistaken report that a subway passenger wielding a knife was running amok - it later turned out that the excited shrieks of K-pop fans watching a BTS video had been misinterpreted.

With 1.3 killings per 100,000 people, South Korea's murder rate is half the OECD average. It also has one of the world's highest conviction rates for felony offences, with a suspect being jailed in nine out of 10 cases for crimes such as murders and rapes.

Yet even so, a rush of online threats in recent weeks vowing to carry out copycat Mudjima attacks has heightened public anxiety.

Police over the past month have tracked down 149 people who posted online murder threats. Nearly half were teenagers, including a 14-year-old girl in the southern city of Gwangju who later told police she did it "just for fun".

South Korea's justice ministry has responded to the attacks by proposing harsher punishments, such as the forcible confinement of high-risk offenders with a mental illness and - in a first for the country - life sentences without parole. But experts say such measures are not the answer.

"Criminals planning crimes only think about how they're going to carry them out," said Lee Sang-hun, a criminology professor at Kyungsang University in Busan. 'They don't consider how much they're going to be punished afterwards."

Lee told This Week in Asia that more support was needed for people with severe mental illness in South Korea, who continue to face social stigma and a lack of support from the state.

Experts say South Korea's high jobless rate, housing problems and dwindling upwards social mobility also need to be addressed with long-term solutions.

Kwak Dae-kyung, a professor at Dongguk University's College of Police and Criminal Justice, said strengthening the bond individuals had with society would help prevent crimes.

"In the medium to long term, it is necessary to provide a [more comprehensive] welfare system and social safety net in our society so that people feel less isolated," he said.

South Korea also needs more community-based systems to manage solitary and reclusive people and those with mental illness, said Chon Yong-ho, a professor at Incheon National University's department of social welfare.

"Currently, there is no public system for treating depression or mental illnesses," he said. "The burden to do so is entirely left with individuals."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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