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By Yun Suh-young
After a series of critical news reports became a hot issue on the Internet, police decided Thursday to end field trips for kindergarteners to police stations where they see prison cells.
The educational program was for young children between the ages of five to seven.
“We will not include visits to prisons on kindergarten field trips from now on,” said an officer at Asan Police Station which was said to have taken 35 kindergarten students to visit the police station and nearby prison cells in August.
The police officer, who declined to be named, said the decision was taken after news reports on the Internet distorted the objective of the trips.
Hwasung Dongbu Police Station, and Suwon Jungbu Police Station had also invited children on field trips to prison cells in the past few months.
Hwasung Dongbu Police Station invited children about once or twice a week and about 760 children have visited the police station to date.
Not unusual trips
Police said the trips to prison cells were not for “experiencing jail” but simply for the purposes of introducing the different facilities in the police station.
Many other police stations nationwide have been conducting the field trip programs for years but never received any criticism until now.
“We’re actually quite taken aback by the news report that negatively depicted the children’s visits. We don’t actively ask them to come; it’s the kindergarten teachers that are more active about conducting such field trip programs. They ask us to open up our facilities to the children,” said an officer at Asan Police Station.
“We’re going to stop taking children to see prisons anyhow due to the news report, but people should know this is a very common type of field trip that kindergartens take their children on. We’ve had many inquiries about such field trips from kindergarten teachers and some even came to our police station today requesting us to continue showing them the prisons for educational purposes.”
Another of the police stations, Hwasung Dongbu Police Station, also stated that due to controversy they would stop taking requests for tours.
“We’re ending the program but we want to make it clear that the media report distorted the facts,” said an officer at Hwasung Dongbu Police Station. “We didn’t take the children into prison cells to experience what it was like there, we just stood at the prison corridor to show them how the prison cells looked like from outside the gratings.”
Teachers were also bewildered by the controversy.
A school teacher who took her students on a field trip to one of the police stations mentioned in the news said that she was “flabbergasted by the news.”
“I took them on the field trip and the children were so excited about it. They laughed and took pictures and really enjoyed the field trip. I don’t understand why this is a controversial issue,” she said.
Netizens divided
Some netizens also seemed quite surprised by the news.
“I was first shocked when I read the headlines of the news but now I’m even more shocked that this would be so controversial,” said a netizen with the ID: bett***.
Another Internet user by the ID: usne*** said, “If this field trip is harmful to children, we shouldn’t even take them to war memorials or the Seodaemun Prison History Hall.”
An ongoing poll that began Thursday, immediately after the news report, showed that 51.1 percent of citizens were positive about kindergarteners going on field trips to prisons.
They said it was okay because the field trip was simply an “educational experience.”
Still, others showed concern. The remaining 48.9 percent voted replied that the experience was “too much” for little children and unnecessary.
“I think the children are too young to be taken to prisons for education. I don’t know what exactly they will learn from it,” said a principal at a children’s academy located in northern Seoul.
“If teachers teach their children in advance about the facilities, then it might be okay. Such field trips depend entirely on the intent of the kindergartens and their teachers. If they have a good educational purpose, it could be okay, but I still think kindergarteners are too young to understand the experience.”
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