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NPA seeks new police recruits

National Police Agency officials yesterday complained of a continuing manpower shortage, saying they hope that more officer candidates will seek to join the force after the next national exam, which will be held in November.

"About 700 officers die at the crime scenes, retire or resign every year, but we only have fewer than 800 graduates from the Taiwan Police College and the Central Police University who can take their slots and continue their jobs every year. The manpower shortage has become a serious problem for us," said Lin Shih-dang (林世當), chief of the agency's Education Division.

Graduates of these colleges do not have to join the police service and also have option of becoming firefighters.

Lin said that the manpower shortage was the result of a decision by the Executive Yuan approximately 10 years ago, when the Cabinet decided to decrease the total number of police officers. The decision saved a lot of money but also created new problems -- the average age of Taiwan's police officers becomes older as the number of officers decreases every year.

"Every single officer of the country's 72,000 police officers is tough and marvelous. But we are only humans, and we do become old," Lin said. "When bad guys are always those young and brutal maniacs while most police officers are becoming old and slow, how do you think it will impact our public order, and what will happen when officers encounter bad guys in the streets?

"Being a police officer is dangerous. Plus, it is the government's policy to cut down its personnel outlays. We have a more and more difficult time recruiting qualified police officers," he said.

Police officers join the force through one of three approaches: passing the exam and going through the four-year Central Police University; passing the exam and going through the three-year associate program at the Taiwan Police College; and passing the national exam for police officers and going through the boot camp training program.

Those who finish any of these challenges have an option to become a firefighter or a police officer, but only graduates from the Central Police University are qualified to start their career as sergeants.

According to the division, the national exam for police officers has been suspended for years due to government budget cuts, but it is resuming this year.

"Currently we have 15,000 applicants already, but we are expecting more than 20,000 applicants who will be competing for only 700 slots," Lin said.

The deadline for applications is Sept. 29 for the exam to be held on Nov. 27 and Nov. 28. Those who possess a high school diploma or above and who are between 18 and 28 years of age are welcome to take the exam.

"To solve the manpower problem, we are planning to hold another national exam for police officers sometime in June or July next year," Lin said. "We do need more qualified, brave, outstanding young men and women to join us."

Lin said that although the basic educational requirement on the applicants is a high school diploma, 80 percent of the current 15,000 applicants hold bachelor's degrees.

"This is indeed encouraging," he said.
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