There were 575 cases in fiscal 2014 of police recording a suspect's entire interrogation, up sharply from a year earlier but still only 17.2 percent of cases subject to lay judge trials, preliminary data from the National Police Agency showed Thursday.
It was a nearly 20-fold increase, from 29 in fiscal 2013, the first year when the complete taping of questioning started in some regions. The measure is aimed at reducing the risk of suspects being coerced into making false confessions.
In May, lawmakers plan to start deliberating over legislation that would make it mandatory to record the entire questioning of an arrested suspect in lay judge cases and those cases exclusively handled by prosecutors.