A new study has found that a third of North Koreans imprisoned in political prison camps are there on charges of guilt by association, or in punishment of wrongdoings of their family or relatives. 
 
The Seoul-based Database Center for North Korean Human Rights made the assessment in a biographical dictionary of workers and prisoners in political prison camps.
 
According to the dictionary issued on Monday, out of one-thousand-258 camp prisoners, 356 were charged with guilt by association, 132 with attempted escape from North Korea for South Korea, 102 with issuing verbal complaints and 72 with attempts to cross the border.
 
Since its establishment in 2003, the database center has been devoted to recording testimonies by victims of the North’s human rights violations by interviewing North Korean escapees.
 
With the latest dictionary, the center sought to organize details about those who work at the North’s political prison camps and those imprisoned there among three-thousand-825 cases of imprisonment and one-thousand-181 cases of missing people stored in its database.