In early September David Hawk published his latest work on the North Korean prison camp system. Hawk is the best-known English-speaking authority on this subject, having documented the North Korean political camps for nearly 15 years. His new report is called “North Korea’s Hidden Gulag: Interpreting Reports of Changes in the Prison Camps,” and it deals with the recent changes in the North Korean camps.

The major conclusions of the study might surprise many – but not the present author and my colleagues. Having analyzed the assorted material, Hawk came to the conclusion that over the last decade or so