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

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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