Back-to-back killings of women supposedly protected by restraining orders have raised questions about what has gone so wrong in our legal system.
The government has failed to heed the warning from the double homicide in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城), in which the elder sister’s abusive husband allegedly brutally murdered both sisters.
Despite an ad hoc legislative hearing on July 16 examining the effectiveness of protection orders, a 27-year-old woman was allegedly murdered by her ex-boyfriend in a parking lot in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) on July 30.
While it is laudable for the government to promise a revision of laws regarding mandatory electronic tagging for perpetrators released from custody, this legislation alone would not achieve its intended outcome without a significant systematic overhaul and data-assisted proactive policing.
Poor decisions are still being made as police forces, law enforcement, and health and social affairs departments have a limited understanding of what a coordinated, whole-system approach should look like.
Even within the police department, the ineffective coordination tears an already tattered safety net even wider. Domestic violence prevention officers typically intervene once they receive a formal incident report. Before filing a report, frontline police have to handle everything from securing the scene and taking statements to gathering evidence and completing the risk assessment.
How can it be ensured that the authorities can respond in time if filings are late, reports come thin or evidence is miscoded by frontline case workers who are too often overwhelmed by the groundwork? Even when the paperwork is filed, action is not guaranteed.
National Police Agency Deputy Director-General Liao Mei-ling (廖美鈴) in a legislative hearing on Aug. 6 said that domestic violence prevention officers “happened to” miss the domestic violence case for the double homicide in Tucheng.
Authorities cannot keep treating first responders as the entire protection system. A real-time, audited data-exchange platform needs to be in place so safety runs on a system, not on a single officer.
With automatic alerts on high-risk cases and live access to case files, domestic violence prevention officers can take prompt actions when minutes matter. Such a platform would also help case workers track the investigation process, create accountability and cut the delays that leave people exposed.
While Taiwan has electronic databases for domestic violence to flag high-risk cases, detectives are not authorized to access the information. This restriction blinds investigations because detectives lack the necessary information to gauge the severity at the door.
It is no surprise that danger is underestimated and patterns of repeat abuse are undetected. Without proof of recurrent assaults, prosecutors lack the critical evidence needed to meet the legal threshold to seek pre-emptive detention.
A system that withholds risk from first responders not only slows protection, it costs lives.
Instead of denying detectives access to the database, the government could adopt role-based, tiered access. In this way, detectives would see risk flags and basic history to facilitate investigations, while prosecutors would have access to the full evidentiary record required in court.
Once information is more accessible, a nationwide, audited data exchange can act as a backstop to ensure one missed step does not sink a case. If the judge can access the real-time case file before a hearing, it can significantly cut down on the time for issuing restraining orders.
In the Xinyi homicide case, issuance of the order was delayed until last month because core documents, including the risk assessment and injury reports, did not reach the court before the May hearing.
Most importantly, we need to consider the possibility of introducing a data-driven warning system for serial and high-risk domestic violence offenders. By linking audited data from law enforcement, health and social services departments, the system could give a more comprehensive prediction based on suspects’ medical history, employment status and prior offenses related to risk-taking behavior.
Such a preventive approach could identify patterns of chronic abuse and flag likely escalation among high-risk offenders. It also allows authorities to intervene earlier or mandate diversionary programs for high-risk profiles.
Meanwhile, domestic violence prevention officers could target support to those most at risk with personalized safety plans, rapid access to shelter and scheduled patrols near their accommodations.
Without a concrete plan for integrated data sharing around potential violators, the authorities’ disjointed approach to tackling domestic violence will not make anything easy — except for creating excuses for ministers to pass the buck for failing to keep women safe.
There is no denying that data-driven policing is not a silver bullet, with pitfalls that include overreliance on the system and the entrenchment of historical bias. Using technology does not mean overriding officers’ professional judgement; it means arming them with objective facts for decisionmaking when every minute counts.
Restraining orders are never the end of protection. It is high time for the government to prove these papers are not so flimsy that they carry less weight than the threats to victims’ lives.
Lo Yi-ting is a freelance writer based in the UK focusing on geopolitics and gender-related issues.
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