Do Not Let Police Remain Outsiders to Judicial Reform

Boasting an "80,000-strong army," the police are the judicial personnel stationed on the frontlines of crime investigation and prevention, and their importance to the judiciary goes without saying. Unfortunately, the full-swing judicial reform in recent years has failed to value police opinions or earnestly listen to the voices of this 80,000-strong army. Taking the National Judicial Reform Conference convened by the Judicial Yuan in 1989 (1999) as an example, among all 120 representatives, the only attendee representing the police was the then Director-General of the National Police Agency under the Ministry of the Interior, Ting Yuan-chin. Through the legal profession's habitual depreciation of police status and even the practice of excluding police from judicial reform, over time, the police have truly become "outsiders" to judicial reform—the group making the least progress and with the most room for improvement in concepts and quality in this wave of judicial reform.

For a long time, many structural flaws have indeed existed in our nation's police system. For instance, during the Martial Law era, political power overrode everything else, and the police were reduced to appendages of the Garrison Command and hatchet men for those in power to purge dissidents; in the 1980s, amidst frequent mass movements, the result of heavily recruiting peace preservation police without strict screening failed to elevate the quality of police officers. Furthermore, the singular source of police recruitment, an overly closed personnel system, and immense work pressure have allowed an internal administrative ethics and bureaucratic culture to form within the police. All of these factors have led the public to distrust the police and lack confidence in their determination and ability to maintain public order.

Precisely for this reason, a "zero crime growth" initiative during the tenure of Minister Yu Cheng-hsien was mocked by outsiders as "high growth in case suppression." Moreover, the Code of Criminal Procedure stipulated in 1989 (1999) that the interrogation of criminal suspects should, in principle, be audio and video recorded throughout (refer to Article 100-1), and after September 2003, it even required that police separate the interrogator from the recorder (meaning the compilation of interrogation records should, in principle, be conducted by someone other than the interrogator; refer to Article 43-1). These rules regulating police investigations actually contain an implicit logic of "distrusting the police." Naturally, the police pushed back and complained, viewing the laws as "big rocks" hindering their investigations! Consequently, lacking sufficient respect for the law and self-esteem in their own duties, instances of police officers "bending the law while knowing it" and "breaking the law while knowing it" were frequently heard of, further deterring the public from entrusting power to the police and forming a vicious cycle.

The aforementioned conditions are not unchangeable; in fact, the time has come when they must change, because police reform is not only for the sake of the police themselves, but also an indispensable link in deepening judicial reform and enhancing government efficacy. What should be changed, and how? Personally, I believe we can start from the following aspects: First, promote diversification of police recruitment sources: police recruitment should no longer be restricted to the Taiwan Police专College and Central Police University; instead, much like the Investigation Bureau recruiting investigators, outstanding graduates from various colleges and universities should be recruited and subsequently trained. Second, strengthen in-service police training: understandably, current legal expertise and criminals' modus operandi are changing with each passing day; if the police do not step up training, they will inevitably fail to keep pace with the times. Third, adopt a bottom-up, two-way communication approach for certain policy-making processes: among these, the design of performance appraisal systems and the amendment of the Code of Criminal Procedure and police statutes should all incorporate the opinions of rank-and-file police officers. Fourth, enhance public trust and elevate the dignity of the police themselves: for example, transforming the facades and signboards of police substations into bright, warm images and colors so that police stations become truly people-friendly institutions; furthermore, requiring police officers on duty to proactively present identification cards printed with their names, units, and contact information to citizens to facilitate public identification and subsequent contact. Fifth, rationalize police duties and working environments. Sixth, establish external oversight and elimination mechanisms to prevent a few black sheep from ruining the image of the entire police force.

It is hoped that these modest opinions will serve as a modest spark to attract valuable opinions, awakening the ruling and opposition parties and all sectors to attach importance to police reform, because the reform of the police system is already one of the most crucial issues in the current stage of judicial reform. The police themselves should not and can no longer remain outsiders to judicial reform.

※ Published in: 2004-7-16 / China Times