Smokey is the bandit?
Police live on the line between honest society and the criminal world. Sometimes, to crack a case, they cross that line. In the authoritarian era, there was little concern for human rights or the rule of law, and dubious methods like entrapment were winked at. "But today the police have to change. The first principle is that they cannot break the law," says veteran investigator Ho Ming-chou, head of the Fourth Investigation Corps at the CIB, who has many years of police experience.
Ho notes that policemen often have to associate with informants from the criminal world. Many people, like operators of illegal gambling or sex businesses, try to get close to police by posing as legitimate businessmen or by getting in tight with local politicians. When it comes time to deal with these activities, policemen have to be especially careful. Or take the use of informants. Ho's attitude is: "Be honest, and don't join in with them. If you have to hang around with them, be more like a 'teacher' or 'guidance counselor' to them, not a friend. Don't fall into the same boat with them."
Most worrisome is when police break the law in order to try to get credit for themselves. In April the Taipei prosecutor indicted a police officer for falsifying documents. The officer used false documents to trap a wanted drug dealer on a trumped-up robbery charge. In the past, there were cases of police inducing gangsters to buy guns so they could "crack the case." It is such cases of the law enforcers being the criminals that most infuriate citizens.
But police have things to say in their own defense.
Li Yung-ching, chairman of the foreign affairs department at the CPU, explains that there is still no consensus in society on whether many non-violent crimes, such as gambling and prostitution, should be illegal. And there are many gray areas in the law (such as what defines a "gambling video game"). Such problems create opportunities for people to make profits and share them with the police, further compromising police integrity.
From the police point of view, it would be best to "decriminalize" these types of activities and bring them into the open where they could be regulated. Wu Hsueh-yen, a professor at the CPU, says that in some states in the US, the sex industry is allowed to operate within a clearly defined area, and those interested in such things can go to these areas to enjoy a somewhat more "reserved" show.
Another proposed method to reduce corruption is to increase police salaries and promotion opportunities so as to reduce the temptation to accept "bonuses" from outside parties. In fact, the starting salary of a police officer who has graduated from a two-year vocational police college is over NT$40,000, well above that of most college graduates just entering the job market. The problem is that after a certain number of years, bottlenecks in the police organization chart make it difficult to progress past a certain point. Looking for new jobs
It has been said that police work is the job in the world most likely to lead to explosions of dangerous emotions. But the pressure in police work comes not, in fact, from criminals, but from daily time pressures and the emotional appeals of citizens.
Two years ago, the Taipei police commissioned a study of stress to be conducted by the Taipei City Psychology Center. It found that there is a high rate of psychosomatic illness among officers under 30, while officers in their 40s and 50s are more likely to have chronic illnesses. More than half of the 710 respondents reported high blood pressure, while 20% reported ulcers and 10% heart trouble. Others, under the pressures of work, reported "frequent anxiety" and "regular use of tranquilizers."
Last June, Hsieh Ming-hui also conducted a survey of police officers. He found that 46% of respondents felt "a sense of honor" from their jobs, while 29% reported "no special feeling" and 25% reported that they didn't want other people to know they are cops. A full 78% of the entire police force, and 69% of high ranking officers (rank 1/4 and above) said they wanted to change careers. Similar surveys showing low morale frequently appear in the media.
Police suicide
How bad is morale in the lower levels? Last year alone 13 police officers committed suicide. Overnight, everyone was talking about the psychological condition of the police.
Compared to other professions, police work is definitely stressful. Cops work long hours and have irregular schedules. A dangerous situation can suddenly occur at any moment. "Maybe you are doing routine ID checks on the street, and a guy pulls a gun on you. Or you go into the home of a suspect to search for clues, and an armed guy jumps out of the closet," says veteran cop Hou Yu-i. These situations cannot be prevented by training, but are simply part of the job.
Police work is indeed dangerous. But, ironically, most of the policemen killed on duty have not been struck down by criminals, but have died by their own hand. This is a fact that the police authorities do not really want to face. According to CPU statistics, between 1991 and 1998, 72 officers killed themselves; over 60% of these were between 20 and 29 years old. The reasons for the suicides were emotional troubles (31%), family factors (22%), health factors (13%), and inability to adapt to the job (12%).
It may seem as if the two leading causes are personal, and not related to police work. But a report by the Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission of the Executive Yuan shows that more than 90% of police officers say that their jobs adversely affect their leisure time with friends or family. Thus "the problem of police suicide is not purely personal, but is related to the nature of police work," says Yeh Shu-lan.
From "Earth God" to 7-11
Chen Ming-chuan, commander of the cadet corps at the CPU, says that it is necessary to rethink the police role in society. How can police work be made more "humane" while also improving public safety? One possible answer is greater cooperation between police and ordinary citizens through "community policing."
Community policing has been implemented on a trial basis in various areas for the last three years. "The main idea," explains Li Cheng-kuang, a station commander in Taipei's Chungcheng district, "is nothing more complicated than getting police out walking a beat." He says that in 1997 the Chungcheng precinct began cooperating with neighborhood chiefs; through the contacts of the neighborhood chiefs, they tried to keep abreast of the comings and goings in the district. At summer and winter vacation, "residents who were going to go away for a while only had to call in at the precinct house and we would increase patrols in their area," says Li. Since the program began, the number of burglaries in the district has fallen from 133 in 1996 to 52 in 1998.
Li encourages all beat officers to do anything they can to help ordinary citizens. For example, if a single woman cannot find a trustworthy cab, she should be able to call the station house and the police can find one for her. Or, if there is a patrol car nearby, the police might even take her home themselves. Says Li: "In the past people thought of the police as being like the Earth God, to whom they would only turn when something bad happened. Now we hope citizens will treat the police more like a 7-11, as a 'good neighbor' right nearby."
Police training has long emphasized techniques of crime prevention and detection. But statistics show that no more than 20% of a policeman's activities are crime-related. And even in criminal cases, most are solved because of help provided by ordinary citizens. "If the police disregard public opinion, they won't have a leg to stand on," warns Hsieh Jui-chih. Cooperation with the public is the major target for the police administration entering the next century.
China has had a modern police system for nearly a century. Mei Ko-wang, former president of the CPU, describes society's attitudes toward the police as "expecting them to be saints, running them off like animals, treating them like criminals, and tossing them away like old shoes." Can closer cooperation with civilians change long-standing stereotypes of the police?