The Ministry of the Interior plans to expand police powers to allow on-the-spot arrests of domestic-abuse offenders, the ministry announced yesterday.
Under the Criminal Code, police are only entitled to arrest domestic-abuse offenders if they are witness to the incident or hold a warrant of arrest issued by prosecutors.
According to police statistics, some 2,480 domestic-abuse cases are reported each month. Last year, 17,376 cases were reported, with only 609 arrests made.
"The regulations are a massive hinderance to us and many victims are critical of our failure to arrest offenders after they have filed a report," Wang Chin-wang (王進旺), director-general of the National Police Administration, said in the min-istry's press conference. "To change the situation, we have decided to revise the Anti-Domestic Violence Law (家庭暴力防治法) to entitle police to arrest people who they believe are involved in domestic abuses."
Wang said that the amendment would allow police to deal with domestic abuse cases more effectively.
Lin Tzu-ling (
Police in the US are entitled to arrest domestic-abuse offenders as long as they believe that the offender would further endanger victims.
As International Women's Day approaches, the ministry yesterday launched a campaign to create a "zero tolerance" environment for Taiwan's women and children.
In yesterday's conference, the ministry officials also said that they would establish a community security system to trace sex offenders and notify the communities where they live, even though a number of technical problems have yet to be solved.
The campaign came after Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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