Only Public Oversight Can Eradicate the Toxic Police Culture

Recent successive scandals within police circles, ranging from the urine sample swap case to the juvenile division prisoner snatching case, have brought police integrity issues to the forefront. According to recent polls, up to 77% of citizens consider public safety to be poor, clearly showing that public distrust toward the police is worsening. While actions such as the Taipei City Police Department quickly issuing administrative punishments to discipline-violating officers and the National Police Agency proactively listing six major police abuses and submitting them to the Ministry of Justice's Department of Government Ethics to demonstrate its determination to eliminate corruption show that the police system feels societal pressure and is determined to root out long-standing malpractices and build police credibility, relying solely on internal supervision by the prosecution, police, and investigation systems to improve long-standing bad habits seems overly ambitious and devoid of novelty.

Under current conditions, the calculation of police performance can be divided into prevention performance and investigation performance. Under the immense pressure of performance evaluations, police departments in various counties and cities strive to lower crime rates and increase clearance rates to make their performance scorecards look good. This leads to practices such as police covering up cases, or violating operational regulations to conduct cross-jurisdictional investigations without authorization, giving rise to abuses such as shielding criminals and soliciting bribes. In view of this, the Judicial Reform Foundation and the Taiwan Association for Police Reform recently co-hosted the "Seminar on Promoting the Rationalization of Police Performance Evaluations," specifically offering several recommendations regarding police performance issues.

First, to prevent the police from "covering up cases" in pursuit of prevention performance, citizens should develop the habit of obtaining a three-part crime report receipt. Currently, police acceptance of crime reports has adopted a single-window system, meaning a report filed anywhere is connected province-wide, and citizens can check crime report data online. Furthermore, citizens should try to dial 110 to report crimes, as this number has call recordings, making it difficult for the police to cover up cases.

Second, in order to secure investigation performance, police in practice frequently use torture, intimidation, deception, and other means to force defendants into "confessions." To prevent such improper investigative methods, it is necessary to require the police to enhance their ability to collect physical evidence through scientific investigative methods; placing importance on forensic medicine and forensic science systems has become an unavoidable trend. On the other hand, it is also necessary to amend the Code of Criminal Procedure to make it more difficult for confessions to be used as evidence, and coordinate this with cross-examination between prosecutors and defense attorneys in court, so that defendants' confessions obtained through torture, intimidation, or deception have nowhere to hide.

Finally, regarding the common practice where police exaggerate minor cases as major clearances, the current scoring system can be reviewed. Currently, the calculation of police performance only requires cases to be cleared and "transferred out" to count points; even if they are not convicted later, the points are not rescinded, fostering a bookkeeping mentality among the police. It is recommended to strengthen prosecutors' case-return review system; as long as a case is returned, police should have points deducted and face disciplinary action to correct the perfunctory mindset of the police.

The security indicator traffic light system implemented since July evidently has countermeasures for every policy from above, and has failed to eradicate the malpractices of the police performance evaluation system. Endless news reports show that police integrity is not an isolated problem. When taking shortcuts and making performance paramount have become deeply ingrained, toxic police cultures, rather than merely expecting internal self-reflection from the official system, public awakening is undoubtedly the most powerful external oversight force. As the Legislative Yuan budget review session approaches, we hope that legislators, while reviewing the police administration budget, will examine whether the police's educational advocacy programs for the public are thorough. Aside from hiring major stars to shoot anti-drug and fire-safety commercials, when can we see the police produce an educational short film teaching citizens how to report crimes? Only when all citizens clearly understand where their rights lie can police investigation procedures be made transparent, preventing police integrity from becoming the number one tumor undermining public safety.