Frequent incidents of violence in society, such as a near-fatal assault with baseball bats in Taichung and a deadly shooting in New Taipei City, are making people anxious. Media commentators blame police chiefs and mayors, calling for their resignations.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said she would review the situation and take firmer action, such as the Cabinet calling a conference on law and order, and proposing countermeasures, while former New Power Party legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) has urged the government to declare “war” on gangsters, and not just as a slogan.
When thugs get into brawls and beat up or even kill people in front of onlookers, their offenses are often recorded on cellphones and posted online. When an incident is reported to the police, they dispatch rapid-response patrols, which cruise the streets around the clock to enforce the law.
Unless offenders are caught at the scene, police often arrive to find no one and nothing. They can only handle the case based on clues. If they miss something because of changed circumstances, they are criticized.
When hoodlums breach the peace and create disorder, police rush to the scene to catch the culprits, but does that solve the problem?
The reality is that courts often release the culprits or give them lenient penalties, after which they return to the streets and start fighting again. The police might then rearrest the culprits. This cycle is a massive drain on police personnel. If the root cause is not eradicated, social order cannot be ensured.
Lawless troublemakers do not fear the police, because they know that the law does not give the police much authority.
Except in the case of offenders being caught red-handed, police cannot exercise their powers of compulsory enforcement, such as stop and search. Even when suspects are arrested, the law requires them to be quickly brought before a court.
The role of police in law enforcement is to assist in criminal investigations. Prosecutors sit in their offices and issue directives, but police have no power to fight on the streets.
Where are the prosecutors when beat cops encounter legal disputes in the middle of the night?
Taiwan claims to be a democracy in which the rule of law prevails and people have no economic worries, so why do criminals roam the streets and threaten people with clubs and knives, and even kill them for little or no reason?
Where is Taiwan’s social safety net?
Has every social system broken down? Has the family safety net been broken? Are the education, social welfare, legal systems failing? Have correctional facilities stopped working?
Are police officers the only ones who clean up the streets and are held responsible for the outcome?
Many major crimes of the past few years have shocked society — from the murder of a girl known as “Little Lightbulb” to the baseball bat assault — but they were mostly committed by people with mental conditions or repeat offenders.
This is where the root cause clearly lies, but there have been few indicators that government agencies are resolutely trying to improve the situation. All they ever do is make officious statements after the news frenzy has cooled.
The right approach can only be to face up to the problem and prescribe effective remedies.
Mark Chih is a senior police officer.
Translated by Julian Clegg
During the long Lunar New Year’s holiday, Taiwan has shown several positive developments in different aspects of society, hinting at a hopeful outlook for the Year of the Horse, but there are also significant challenges that the country must cautiously navigate with strength, wisdom and resilience. Before the holiday break, Taiwan’s stock market closed at a record 10,080.3 points and the TAIEX wrapped up at a record-high 33,605.71 points, while Taipei and Washington formally signed the Taiwan-US Agreement on Reciprocal Trade that caps US tariffs on Taiwanese goods at 15 percent and secures Taiwan preferential tariff treatment. President William Lai (賴清德) in
As red lanterns adorn street corners and social media feeds teem with zodiac divinations, the Year of the Horse has arrived. In our hyper-accelerated age, the horse is almost exclusively synonymous with the idiom ma dao cheng gong (馬到成功) — “instant success upon arrival.” It is a linguistic shot of adrenaline, fueling the thrilling illusion that once the bell tolls, our lives would screech off into a cloud of dust, leaving all troubles behind. Yet, when examining the millennia-long partnership between humans and this magnificent “biological machine,” a different truth emerges. The true essence of the horse is not merely speed;
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Deputy Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) earlier this month led a delegation to Beijing to attend a think tank forum between the KMT and Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After returning to Taiwan, Hsiao spoke at length about “accumulating mutual trust” and letting matters “fall into place,” portraying the forum as a series of discussions focused on cooperation in tourism, renewable energy, disaster prevention, emerging industries, health and medicine, and artificial intelligence (AI). However, when the entire dialogue presupposes the so-called “1992 consensus — the idea that there is only “one China,” with each side of the Taiwan
India is getting richer every year, but its cities do not seem to be getting any more livable. Not because the country is too poor, or because leaders lack ambition, but because urban citizens are starved of funds and deprived of representation — and the government is in no hurry to fix it, even though people are dying as a result. Mumbai’s skyline is dotted with opulent glass towers, and it calls itself India’s commercial capital. The civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corp, is the country’s richest. Yet, residents have lived for years with no say in how their city was
RSS