There is an old American proverb which says that it's too late to close and lock the corral after the horses have escaped.
This bit of Americana comes to mind because of the recent prison break, down at the Taichung Detention Center of a death row inmate (a career criminal with organized crime connections) and a robbery suspect, both apparently armed with handguns.
All indications point to an inside job, meaning the escapees had help from prison guards, one of whom seems to have freely joined the pair. Minister of Justice Yeh Chin-feng
You don't need a PhD in criminology to figure out that a poorly trained, poorly paid and poorly supervised prison guard work force is fertile grounds for incompetence and corruption. Such problems will go on until corrections officers in Taiwan become professionals -- with professional pay, training and a reasonably high educational background, working at a rational staff-to-inmate ratio with adequate supervision.
By the Department of Corrections' own admission, working conditions for Taiwan's correctional officers are practically a guarantee of corruption and incompetence.
Two of the major factors affecting professionalism among corrections officers are pay and staff-to-inmate ratios. The monthly pay of the guard who "left" with the two escapees was about NT$40,000. By way of comparison, the California Department of Corrections entry level monthly pay is equivalent to NT$78,000 and the top end is NT$129,000.
As for staff-to-inmate ratios, according to the department it is one officer to 12 inmates. In California it is roughly one to four. I should note, staff-to-inmate ratios in the abstract are somewhat meaningless, because prisoners come in many "varieties," from the very violent to the very mild.
The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which were first approved in 1957 (back when the ROC was still a member) include the following rules about personnel:
1. The administration shall select every grade of personnel and maintain in their minds and the public's the important social service they provide.
2. To these ends, pay, conditions and benefits shall be suitable to professional and exacting service.
3. Personnel are to be sufficiently educated, and to receive ongoing courses and training.
4. As far as possible, personnel should include psychiatric, social work and education professionals.
5. The director shall be a qualified administrator, retained on a fulltime basis and residing on the premises or in the immediate vicinity.
6. Staff personnel are to be able to speak the language of the greatest number of prisoners, and to retain the services of an interpreter when necessary.
Taiwan's correctional officer program falls well below these minimum standards, paralleling the problems in the police force and the military. Until that perception changes, those professions, which are in fact vital, will continue to find it difficult to attract and retain good people.
Before we have yet another escape let us "fix the gate" by doing something meaningful to raise the overall professionalism among Taiwan's correction officers.
Brian Kennedy is a board member of Amnesty International Taiwan and the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
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