There will be times when you finish your work late and need to go home after sunset. The road to your home is quite far away and you are afraid of the dark surrounding. You can always be the victim of the unexpected accident under the evil hands approaching from behind in the dark. To address such problems, government proposed the Night Guide system exclusively for women’s safety on the way home. The system initially received the spotlight for its originality, but is now fading away beneath a lack of assurance and inefficiency.
 
“Protecting women who are vulnerable to crimes would be the shortcut to maintaing a safe society,” Park Kwon Wook, the chief clerk of the Daegu Police Department, claimed. Currently, 15 cities, including Seoul and Daegu, elected to install the “Night Guides to Get Women Home Safely” system as their first step in forming a society without crime. When women feel they need protection at night on their way home, they can call the district office and ask for night guards. Then, the office sends two to three guards to where the women are and take them safely back home. This system received huge attention from the public, especially from women, who are the main object for the new proposal, since sex-crime rates continue to skyrocket year to year. They wondered whether the Night Guide system could be the solution to this problem.
 
To this question, the trial period for Night Guide system definitely provided a definite answer.—“No!” Contrary to the words of the government and 15 City Halls, the system contains a number of flaws and gives additional possiblity of sex-crimes. There is no doubt that Night Guide system will reduce possible crimes. Nevertheless, compared with the money poured into the system, it is far from being cost effective. The rate of requests for night guides has prominently decreased this year, and payments are being wasted.
 
One reason to state that the Night Guard system is neither efficient nor effective is that the time period for protection is greatly limited. The service is provided from 10 P.M. to 1 A.M. and weekends and holidays are not included in the available times. The service time is quite different from the actual times when sex-crimes occur. According to the “Subway Sex Crime Report”, analyzed by the National Police Agency, the most frequent time of crime occurrence is 8 to 11 A.M. and 6 to 8 P.M. In other words, women could not be protected at the times that they are highly vulnerable. Moreover, excluding holidays and weekeneds cannot be fully explained for any reason, since it does not make sense to assume that women are not attacked on those days.
 
The night guards themselves greatly lack the ability to provide comfort to women. According to an announcement by Seoul City Hall, among 495 people who are recruited for night guards, over 70% are women aged 40 to 50. The overall average age of night guards is similar to that so far. There is substantial doubt whether male and female guards of this age would be able to stop young, often-armed male assailants. They can also be included as possible victims and this runs counter to the main goal of the Night Guard system, despite the fact that hiring these unemployed men and women would boost the economy in the short-term.
 
The Night Guard system for women was implemented under good intentions, and it is definitely worth maintiaining. However, it is now the time that government and City Halls should wonder whether night guards can achieve their intended purpose. There are problems that could be seen at first sight and Night Guard system would soon collapse with criminals still outside under dark. There sould be an immediate amendment to the system so that the system can revive and become successful in forming a safe, cozy society.

 

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