Key facts
- Presidential chief of staff Lim Kwang-hyun said the government is discussing life imprisonment without parole and a new public safety patrol unit.
- Lim said the initiative follows President Lee Jae Myung's instruction at a Cabinet meeting the previous week.
- Under current law, inmates serving life sentences may be considered for parole after 20 years.
- A 2023 Cabinet-approved bill to introduce life without parole failed to pass the 21st National Assembly before May 2024.
South Korea's presidential office said on November 15, 2026, that it is considering life imprisonment without parole as part of an initiative to strengthen public safety and crack down on crimes targeting vulnerable people, Yonhap reported.
Presidential chief of staff Lim Kwang-hyun said at a briefing that the initiative will focus on relationship-based crimes and crimes with apparently random motives. He said the government will also step up efforts against scams, illegal drugs, illegal private lending, digital sex crimes and false or fabricated information. "In cases involving economic harm that exploit people's desperate circumstances, we will pursue those responsible even overseas, dismantle the criminal operations at their source and block criminal proceeds," Lim said. "We are discussing measures such as establishing a new public safety patrol unit and introducing life imprisonment without parole."
Lim said the initiative follows instructions from President Lee Jae Myung at a Cabinet meeting the previous week to concentrate government-wide resources on protecting people's lives. The issue has drawn renewed attention after a series of high-profile cases involving relationship-based violence, including the killing in the previous month of a woman on the southern resort island of Jeju who had been under police protection after reporting stalking and dating violence, allegedly by a man who told police she was his former lover.
Under current law, inmates serving life sentences may be considered for parole after serving 20 years. In 2023, the Cabinet approved a bill to amend the Criminal Act to introduce life imprisonment without parole, which would have allowed courts to distinguish between life sentences with and without the possibility of parole. The bill failed to pass the 21st National Assembly before its term expired in May 2024.