The Republic of Korea Military Police (MP; in Korean: 군사경찰, "Gun-Sa Gyeong-Chal"), are the uniformed law enforcement agencies of each respective branch of the

Republic of Korea Armed Forces The Republic of Korea Armed Forces (), also known as the ROK Armed Forces, are the armed forces of South Korea. The ROK Armed Forces is one of the largest and most powerful standing armed forces in the world with a reported personnel strength of ...

. Once operated under a unified Military Police Command (헌병총사령부, "Heon-byeong Chong-sa-ryeong-bu") between 1953 and 1960, the ROK's MP units are now commanded by the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force HQs separately. ROK Army MPs also function as a

border guard A border guard of a country is a national security agency that performs border security. Some of the national border guard agencies also perform coast guard (as in Federal Police (Germany), Germany, Guardia di Finanza, Italy or State Border Gua ...

s at the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

DMZ Border Guards

All ROK troops guarding and patrolling inside the DMZ wears military police armband, although they are mainly members of army's infantry or light infantry units. (Reconnaissance Battalion/Company. The ones deployed in the JSA are members of the United Nations Command Security Battalion) their equipment is that of elite ROK-army units such as body-armor/combat vests,

night-vision Night vision is the ability to see in low-light conditions, either naturally with scotopic vision or through a night-vision device. Night vision requires both sufficient spectral range and sufficient intensity range. Humans have poor night v ...

equipment, optical sights for the Daewoo K2, etc. The reason why these soldiers are MPs is because the armistice that was signed in 1953 that ended the Korean War requires both sides (the North and the South) to restrict access inside the DMZ to MPs only, which means no vehicles, no squad-served weapons (such as mortars and HMGs) and no regular units of the army.

Equipment

The ROK MP has the following small-arms in their inventory: *

Daewoo K1A The Daewoo Precision Industries K1/K1A is a South Korean selective-fire assault rifle developed by Agency for Defense Development (ADD) and manufactured by Daewoo Precision Industries (now S&T Motiv) and Dasan Machineries (since 2016). It enter ...

* Daewoo K2 *

Daewoo K5 The Daewoo Precision Industries K5 or K5/DP51 series is a 9×19mm semi-automatic pistol produced by S&T Daewoo of South Korea. The K5 was introduced in 1989. It is recoil operated and uses a conventional Browning-type locking system. It is mos ...

* Various revolvers of U.S. origin

DMZ Border Guards

Equipment

References

See also