Crime is rising as a result of the sluggish economy. According to the National Police Administra-tion (NPA, 警政署), 490,736 criminal offenses were committed last year, a record high and the second consecutive year that crime increased more than 10 percent. Almost 70 percent of these crimes were theft, 46 percent of which involved cars and motor scooters.
Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (
An initial look at this anti-theft plan leaves one with a sense of deja vu. Sure enough, it is indistinguishable from former interior minister Huang Chu-wen's (黃主文) plan announced three years ago. In 1999 Huang demanded that police cut theft by 20 percent within six months, partly because the problem weighed heavily on people's minds and partly to improve the government's record by improving public safety before the 2000 presidential election.
As expected, driven by the promises of great rewards and threats of heavy punishment, the police successfully met their targets and theft in 1999 fell by almost 20 percent from the year before. This is partly, of course, why the incidence of theft rose so sharply over the next two years.
Since Taiwan started to follow the Western example of using "scientific and objective" crime statistics as a tool for evaluating efficiency, we have seen major changes in the police culture. Led by a mistaken, blind belief that "numbers can speak," many police authorities ignore the quality of their services by looking only at numbers when issuing rewards or punishment.
Police officers have dealt with this by gradually developing a policy of avoiding problems. They discourage the public from filing reports of crimes that have little chance of being solved, or they use the public's insufficient legal knowledge to distort important facts of a crime, thus watering down major cases and giving them low-key treatment. Cases where the rewards to the police are high and achievable are exaggerated. In the past few years, we have thus often seen some startling results. Claims by the government to have drastically cut crime are therefore at odds with the public's perception of the situation.
Numbers not only speak, they lie as well. The trick is to see who is doing the talking, or who it is that lets you talk.
The police, who occupy the lowest ranks in the government system, are not always allowed to even speak the truth. There are many examples of police authorities being forced to change data to highlight the outstanding achievements of administrative leaders. Such crime statistics, fabricated to serve political goals, will of course be false.
Unrealistic crime statistics are in fact not particular to Taiwan. Even in the US, internationally recognized for its achievements in the war against crime, there are scandals of police officers being prosecuted for suppressing criminal investigations, be it in big cities such as New York City, Atlanta or Philadelphia, or small cities such as Boca Raton, Florida.
In recent years, the US has successfully controlled violent crime by implementing community police services and problem-solving strategies. According to the FBI, crime in all major US cities is in stable decline. New York City's achievements in crime control have set an example for countries around the world, and there is a never-ending stream of people visiting the city's police force to gain experience. Under the supervision of former mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, New York City adopted a policy of strict quantitative management of public safety, and all 76 precincts in the city now have personnel dedicated to the analysis of crime data. They make daily, weekly and monthly comparisons, and any underperforming precinct chiefs are immediately replaced. In 1998, the New York Police Department's chief of transportation suppressed reports of almost 20 percent of all crimes. When discovered, he was forced to resign.
The mayor of Philadelphia tried to emulate the success of New York. Under pressure from the mayor, police officers started to tamper with crime data that soon became completely unrealistic, forcing the FBI to delete all crime data from Philadelphia from national crime statistics for 1996, 1997 and 1998.
Experience has shown that reward and punishment based on the evaluation of individual cases is not a good method and definitely not the way to solve the problem. There are no shortcuts to improving public safety and there is no panacea. So what can be done?
First, build a culture of honesty in the police force and eliminate the practice of suppressing reports. Stop believing in the numbers myth and encourage police officers to truly reflect public safety issues and the real level of crime.
Second, the police should move away from quantitative controls toward an improvement of service quality. Produce a service handbook for the police and create standard work procedures regulating behavior so that the police display a professional image, following fair and just procedures, when serving the public or carrying out other duties. This should then be made the standard for the examination and evaluation of officers.
Third, negotiate, as soon as possible, with the related ministries a way to simplify police operations. Allow police officers to concentrate on carrying out their duties and directing their attention toward managing their individual districts so they can serve residents and gain their trust and support.
Fourth, improve on-the-job training and education. Strengthen the officers ability to perform their duties, their legal education and communication skills, and improve their professional awareness in order to shape an image of the police as being both professional and service-minded.
Fifth, in the process of improv-ing public safety, officially recognized organizations could be commissioned to carry out regular opinion polls in each district so that we can understand the level of satisfaction with the police, as well as investigate the sources of public safety issues in the community.
Sandy Yeh is director of the Continuing Education and Training Center at Central Police University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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