A proposal to upgrade the National Police Administration (NPA) to the level of a ministry ? which has been under consideration for over ten years ? was eventually passed by the Cabinet last week, amid demands by the new administration that the outgoing Cabinet not make important policy decisions of this nature.
The NPA is currently run under the Ministry of the Interior. During the recent presidential election campaign, however, the promotion of the NPA was favored by all major candidates, including Chen Shui-bian (
Questions have been raised over the possible impact the promotion of the NPA would have on public peace and order.
But at least one factor in its favor is that such an organizational change would help simplify the duties of the police.
It has long been argued that the work assigned to basic-level policemen is too diverse and trivial. As a result, officers cannot concentrate on public safety tasks, which are ostensibly their main function.
Their necessary auxiliary work -- the responsibility of other public employees but assisted by the police -- totals over one hundred line items.
Sandy Yeh (
Yeh said there are two problematic characteristics of the police system.
"The police are low on the totem pole [in the governmental bureaucracy], but has plenty of manpower. Therefore, many other governmental departments consider the police as easy to parcel work out to," she said. "Only when the NPA is promoted will there be an equal footing for police to talk [with other government units]."
Apart from shifting jobs which were never supposed to be those of the police, the promotion would also be of great help for the NPA to integrate resources available for the purpose of law enforcement, according to officials at the NPA Personnel Office.
"Many affairs regarding public safety are cross-ministry. As an affiliate of the Ministry of the Interior, the NPA's capability to take the whole situation into account is limited," one official said.
The promotion of the NPA would also help "depoliticize" and "professionalize" police work, Yeh said.
She pointed out that, when under political pressure, government superiors often order improper instructions, such as setting a deadline for solving a criminal case or setting maximum crime rates.
"This is all political language, and undermines professionalism in police work. In response to such instructions, lower-level officials might resort to `practical' means, such as `eating cases' [not recording reported criminal cases and in effect pretending that they did not happen]," Yeh said.
She added that the promotion of the Administration would exempt it from such political intrusions "from above," and the return to professionalism of police work would improve public safety.
Another major obstacle in the current system is that a large portion of police budgets are planned by local governments. However, as is widely known, many county or city assemblies are more or less controlled by organized crime groups, creating the ironic situation of police being subject to gangster control.
One suggested solution has been to switch the power to approve police budgets to the central government.
It has been widely said that the promotion of the NPA would help solve this problem. However, the division of powers between the central and local governments involves amendments to the Constitution and related laws, and the proposal is not yet fixed on the Cabinet's reform agenda.
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