South Korea’s ‘Don’t Ask Why’ Stabbings Prompt New Debate on Criminal Punishment

SEOUL—A string of random stabbings in South Korea has inspired online threats of copycat attacks and unnerved the country of 52 million, pushing officials to consider adding new criminal punishments such as life imprisonment without parole.

Lawmakers and local media have referred to the knife-wielding incidents as “Don’t Ask Why” crimes, given the lack of clear motives behind the violence and indiscriminate victim targeting.

South Korea, where strict firearm laws block nearly all civilians from gun ownership, had recently reported a decade-low level of crime, with its murder rate dropping to 1.3 homicides per 100,000 people, according to the latest government data. That is about half of the average seen by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member states; it also represents roughly one-fifth of the murder rate in the U.S.

On Thursday, a 22-year-old man injured more than a dozen people after ramming his car into a group of pedestrians. He then stabbed a series of strangers at a suburban Seoul department store connected to a subway station. At least four online threats of knife attacks at specific subway stations have been lodged in the day since, some giving specific time frames or targets, local police said. One person vowed to “kill as many people as possible.”

On Friday, two more knife incidents occurred. A high-school teacher in the central South Korean city of Daejeon underwent emergency surgery after being stabbed in the face and chest by a man believed to be in his late 20s. Separately, police detained a knife-wielding man in his 20s at a major bus terminal in Seoul, with no casualties reported. 

Authorities haven’t described either incident as a copycat case or provided a motive.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called the Thursday department-store attack an “act of terrorism against innocent citizens,” according to a presidential spokeswoman. The country’s National Police Agency said it has launched a special-enforcement operation, dispatching more personnel to busy public areas and conducting stop-and-search operations on suspicious individuals.

On Friday, South Korea’s Justice Ministry said it would pursue steps to add a life sentence without parole to the country’s criminal-law system. For now, those handed life imprisonment are eligible for parole after 20 years behind bars. Yoon’s ruling party said it would pursue the policy, too.

Twelve of the 14 injured from the Thursday department-store rampage were seriously hurt, police said. Two remain in critical condition and at risk of major brain damage, police added. 

Park Eun-mi, a 61-year-old homemaker, passes by the area where the Thursday stabbing rampage took place nearly every day, as she lives in an apartment complex nearby. She finds what happened terrifying and remains concerned about the string of stabbings and the online threats.

“It’s scary that you can’t really prepare for this kind of thing in any way,” Park said. “South Korea is internationally known as a very safe country, though now there’s quite a problem.”

The 22-year-old man involved in the Thursday attack was a high-school dropout who had been diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder but hadn’t received proper treatment, local police said. During questioning, the man said he believed an unidentified group of people had wanted to kill him, police said. 

South Korea has a poor record in mental-health assistance—a factor that psychology experts and activists say contributes to the country’s suicide rate, which for nearly two decades has been the highest among OECD members. Seeking mental-health treatment still carries a social stigma and can serve as grounds for a health-insurance company to reject coverage, local experts say. 

Before the Thursday incident, South Korea had seen two other high-profile violent attacks this year involving young people under apparent mental distress. A 23-year-old woman in May killed a university student she had met through a tutoring app using a fake identity. Criminal psychologists involved in the case have said the woman appeared motivated by her envy of the victim’s social status and academic background.

On July 21, a man in his early 30s killed one and injured three others in a knife attack near a subway station in southern Seoul. He told police that he “had no will to live” when arrested and said during interrogations that he had “lived a miserable life and wanted to make others miserable, too.”

The recent cases shed light on the serious risk to society from a growing number of young people who appear to be disgruntled and possess distorted views about their situation, said Yoon Jeong-sook, director of crime analysis and research at the state-owned Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice. 

The government could increase awareness of job-training programs and youth counseling centers, as well as make greater efforts to identify and reach those most in need early on, she added. “We need to think about ways to better address the rising income polarization among South Korea’s youth and create stronger safety nets for those who have fallen behind or are marginalized,” Yoon said.

Write to Jiyoung Sohn at [email protected] and Timothy W. Martin at [email protected]