Nearly half of Taiwanese believe that overall public safety is worse than before, a survey released yesterday by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) found.
The results showed that 13.6 percent of respondents believed that overall public safety is better than before, while 26 percent of respondents believed that it is about the same and 11.6 percent said that they did not know.
Asked about Premier Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) statement that “unnecessary meetings” should not be held during the COVID-19 pandemic — in response to lawmakers’ criticism that the Executive Yuan’s last interagency public security meeting was more than a year ago, instead of every two months — 68.9 percent of respondents did not agree, while nearly 18 percent agreed and 13.3 percent said they did not know.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Asked about President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) pledge in her 2016 inaugural address that her administration would strengthen the social safety net, 61.3 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the government’s efforts, while 20.6 percent said they were satisfied and 18.1 percent said they did not know.
The survey, which was conducted on Thursday and Friday last week, collected 916 valid samples through telephone interviews and has a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.
The government’s “very bad” performance on public safety has created panic in people’s minds, KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Alicia Wang (王育敏) told a news conference in Taipei.
The results “represent the voice of the public,” she said, urging the government to re-evaluate itself.
Last month’s abduction and murder of a Malaysian woman studying at Chang Jung Christian University in Tainan has sparked discussion about public safety and spurred calls to improve safety on school campuses.
The National Policy Foundation, a think tank affiliated with the KMT, yesterday also called a news conference to discuss school campus safety.
There were 167,696 campus safety-related incidents reported in 2016, 136,615 in 2017 and 151,220 in 2018, the foundation said, citing Ministry of Education statistics.
The incidents included 792 deaths in 2016, 893 deaths in 2017 and 859 deaths in 2018, said Kao Yuang-kuang (高永光), convener of the foundation’s Education, Culture and Sports Division.
Incidents of violent or deviant behavior on school campuses increased each year from 2016 to 2018, with 6,959 incidents reported in 2016, 7,756 in 2017 and 8,660 in 2018, he said, citing ministry statistics.
In 2018, violent or deviant behavior on school campuses was reported to have affected 15,847 people, Kao said.
The figures demonstrated the severity of the issue, Kao added.
Of the 151,220 incidents reported in 2018, 21,187 involved the safety of students aged 18 or younger, he said.
“As parents ... we hope that when our children go to school, the school is a safe place,” he said.
The number of junior-high students reported for drug abuse increased from 164 in 2018 to 184 last year, Kao said, citing a Ministry of Health and Welfare report.
While the number of senior-high students reported for drug abuse decreased from 498 in 2017 to 321 in 2018 and 315 last year, the total remains “quite shocking,” he said.
There were warning signs before the murder of the Malaysian student, but those were not taken seriously, KMT Legislator Lee De-wei (李德維) said.
Educators should teach students from a young age to look out for each other, he said.
KMT lawmakers would discuss legislation to improve the safety of students on campuses, he added.
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