Police have identified 2,734 people implicated in stalking or related crimes over the past three years, and stepped up patrols and officer training in preparation for the June enactment of a stalking prevention law.
After years of debate, the Legislative Yuan in December last year passed the Stalking and Harassment Prevention Act (跟蹤騷擾防制法), which is to go into effect on June 1.
Earlier in 2019, the National Police Agency instituted a plan to combat stalking, which included compiling monthly data on cases at risk of repeat offense.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of the Interior
The agency said that 2,734 people were implicated in stalking or related crimes between July 2019 and December last year.
Of those, 1,543 cases (56.4 percent) were classified as sexual harassment, while 619 (22.4 percent) were cases of domestic violence, although those cases after January 2020 were reclassified as a more serious criminal offense under the Domestic Violence Prevention Act (家庭暴力防治法) and therefore are no longer included in the agency’s stalking statistics.
About 8.7 percent, or 239 people, were implicated over contraventions of criminal law, such as coercion, indecent exposure, assault or offenses against privacy.
The agency also found 189 cases of workplace discrimination, 76 contraventions of social order — such as stalking “without justifiable reasons,” peeping or other unexplained harassment — and 59 cases of discrimination under educational law.
Under the new law, stalking is defined as behavior intended to repeatedly exert “anything sexual or gender-related toward a specific person against his/her will, which intimidates such specific person and sufficiently affects his/her daily life or social activities.”
It also lists eight activities that would constitute stalking.
Under the new law, police are authorized to issue a protective order if an initial warning is ignored within two years. A perpetrator could then be arrested if the order is contravened, with the option for preventive detention if approved by a court.
To ease the transition when the new law goes into effect, the agency said it would continue following its 2019 plan, and advise precincts on how to handle cases under current and future laws on an individual basis.
It also vowed to review incident hotspots and times of day when reports are made, and step up patrols accordingly, while also expanding regular patrols to include known harassers.
Since there is considerable overlap of domestic violence, social order, harassment and other types of incidents, the agency said it is working to improve officers’ familiarity with the new law and when to apply it.
For example, in New Taipei City, the number of sexual harassment cases decreased by nearly 10 percent between 2020 and last year, while the number of related criminal offenses such as coercion and obstruction of freedom increased by 11.3 percent, the agency said.
This shows that officers are gaining a better understanding of the nature of stalking and harassment, it said.
Officers’ newly instituted ability to issue protective orders and pre-emptively detain perpetrators is also expected to greatly reduce incidents and “fill in the last piece of gendered violence prevention,” it added.
Additional reporting by Hsu Kuo-chen
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
HORROR STORIES: One victim recounted not realizing they had been stabbed and seeing people bleeding, while another recalled breaking down in tears after fleeing A man on Friday died after he tried to fight the knife-wielding suspect who went on a stabbing spree near two of Taipei’s busiest metro stations, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said. The 57-year-old man, identified by his family name, Yu (余), encountered the suspect at Exit M7 of Taipei Main Station and immediately tried to stop him, but was fatally wounded and later died, Chiang said, calling the incident “heartbreaking.” Yu’s family would receive at least NT$5 million (US$158,584) in compensation through the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp’s (TRTC) insurance coverage, he said after convening an emergency security response meeting yesterday morning. National
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South
RSS