Seminar | Experience Sharing on the Handling of Micro-Theft Cases
Last edited: 2026-07-27
Taiwan's average salary has grown year by year, reaching NT$55,754 today. Yet behind this growth, disadvantaged citizens who fail to reach average living standards are numerous and increasing year by year. However, due to a lack of legal familiarity or difficulty in accessing social welfare resources, disadvantaged individuals frequently end up taking others' belongings by mistake or stealing out of a desire for basic sustenance, leading to endless cases of individuals choosing to enter prison just for three meals a day. This situation indirectly causes the prison inmate population aged 60 and over to continuously rise. Yet sentencing disadvantaged citizens to imprisonment in this manner not only fails to achieve the purpose of preventing recidivism, but also wastes judicial resources.
Regarding this phenomenon, scholars have previously suggested that under the current legal framework, the application of community service could be made more flexible, or cooperation could be established with social welfare groups. Through planning with social welfare groups, defendants can come to understand and join the activities of these groups to build their sense of identity and self-confidence, while enabling disadvantaged defendants to access opportunities to acquire resources—an important part of social reintegration. Citing Hualien District Court 2016 Criminal Appeal Case No. 4 as an example, the judge in that case considered the defendant's socioeconomic conditions and mental disability, contacted and cooperated with a local church, allowed the defendant to receive the church's care, and ultimately rendered a judgment exempting the defendant from punishment, thereby preventing the potential worsening of the defendant's physical and mental condition in prison should a suspended sentence be revoked.
However, how courts and prosecutors' offices should address the plight of disadvantaged defendants and provide substantive, beneficial assistance under the current legal framework—or whether conditions for sentence exemptions or suspension of prosecution should be amended to make regulations more feasible—requires brainstorming from all sectors. We hope this seminar will share and gather opinions from all sectors and understand whether there are any practical difficulties, thereby facilitating subsequent institutional discussions and advocacy.
Time
September 17, 2022 (Sat) 10:00-12:00
Location
Webex Online Meeting Room, link will be provided after registration
Agenda
| Session | Time | Participants |
| Opening Remarks | 10:00-10:05 |
Moderator Li Ming-ju, Attorney-at-Law Remarks Li Ch'i-fang, Attorney-at-Law |
| JRF Statistics and Research Report | 10:05~10:30 |
Panelist Chung Yuan Christian University Intern Ch'iao Cheng-hsiang, Attorney-at-Law |
| Experience Sharing | 10:30~11:30 |
Moderator Li Ming-ju, Attorney-at-Law Panelists |
| Q&A | 11:30~12:00 | Moderator Li Ming-ju, Attorney-at-Law |
Organizer
Human Rights Protection Committee, Taiwan Bar Association
Co-organizers
Judicial Reform Foundation
Legal Aid Foundation
College of Law, National Taipei University
This article is an AI-generated translation of the original Chinese text. In the event of any discrepancy, the Chinese version shall prevail.