Public Safety Has Nothing to Do with Hoods Worn by Suspects

Recently, following a succession of major criminal cases involving the robbery, hostage-taking, and fatal shooting of elected representatives at various levels—widely reported by the media—the state of public safety has once again sparked concern and discussion. Driven by empathy, some legislators proposed that the National Police Agency under the Ministry of the Interior relax the requirement for criminal suspects to wear hoods. Their reasoning is that this would facilitate identification by victims, thereby increasing the case clearance rate and achieving a deterrent effect against crime.

The question is: does the state of public safety really depend on victims identifying criminal suspects to maintain it? Are there truly no other factors, such as social issues (e.g., education), economic conditions (e.g., unemployment), and inadequate scientific investigative capabilities by the police? Over the past few decades, public safety in Taiwan has fluctuated; however, making criminal suspects wear hoods is only a practice of the past year or two, and it is mostly in major cases in Taipei that suspects receive this treatment. Clearly, whether a suspect wears a hood has nothing to do with the state of public safety.

Based on the "principle of non-publicity of investigations" and the "presumption of innocence"—which dictates that anyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a final judicial judgment—affording suspects the treatment of wearing hoods during the prosecutorial and police investigation stages is undoubtedly an extremely important human rights indicator in a democratic nation governed by the rule of law. Have we not witnessed many sensational major cases that, upon their occurrence, dominated the headlines and airtime of all media outlets? After viewing them, the public inevitably jumps to the conclusion that the individuals depicted are heinous criminals. Yet, after one or two years, or even longer judicial investigation and trial proceedings, not everyone initially declared a suspect necessarily deserves punishment and receives a guilty verdict. Because the news value has passed, how many people will subsequently know that the judiciary has restored their innocence? Since both the "non-publicity of investigations" and the "presumption of innocence" are explicitly mandated requirements in the current Code of Criminal Procedure, the government should act in accordance with the law. How can it demand the relaxation of restrictions on suspects wearing hoods based on the entirely unrelated pretext of temporary deterioration in public safety?

Furthermore, regarding the identification of suspects, referencing the practices of advanced nations in Europe and America, the National Police Agency promulgated the "Procedural Guidelines for Police Authorities in Implementing the Identification of Criminal Suspects" on August 20, 2001. To avoid erroneous identification caused by suggestive identification and the resulting unnecessary trouble, several key points are particularly worth mentioning: for instance, the number of persons to be identified must be six or more at a time; each identification lineup should contain only one suspect to avoid single-person identification; individuals undergoing identification must not have major differences in physical characteristics; and prior to conducting the identification, any hints, suggestions, or words, actions, or arrangements that might influence the identifier's choice must be avoided. From the above guidelines for identification, it is clear that when the police announce the solving of a case or transfer a suspect for prosecutorial interrogation, the claim that relaxing the restriction on hoods—which prevent suspects from being exposed in the media—would facilitate public identification is fundamentally wrong, both under the current system and in legal theory.

For the reasons stated above, we believe that suspects wearing hoods has no absolute correlation with the deterioration of public safety, and the wishes of the individuals concerned should be respected. Moreover, since the National Police Agency has already clearly established standard procedures for identifying suspects, it should all the more refrain from misleading the public by treating "television identification" as the norm in investigations, thereby causing a disproportionate violation of human rights.

※ Published in: Liberty Times