Sandy Yeh
Community Policing in Taipei
1
Introduction
Sandy Yeh
Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMON CHALLENGES
•rapid change in social and
demographic patterns
•crime & fear of crime
•drugs
•urban decay
•====> COMMUNITY POLICING
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Community Policing in Taipei
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MODERN POLICING
• 1829: Sir Peel founded modern policing
• Early 1900s : a public force with specific
organizational structures==>known as
“Political Era”
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Community Policing in Taipei
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POLITICAL ERA
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Community Policing in Taipei
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POLITICAL ERA
FUNCTIONS:
•crime prevention and control
•maintenance of public order
• providing a wide variety of social services.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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POLITICAL ERA
ROLE
• served as a link between the politician
and community
• relied heavily on foot patrol and face-toface contact with citizen
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Community Policing in Taipei
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POLITICAL ERA
STRENGTH
•the foot patrol integrated police into
neighborhoods they served, and the
community believed that police patrol
helped to prevent crimes from
happening and to solve them when they
occurred.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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POLITICAL ERA
WEAKNESS
• the intimacy with community and the
decentralized organization design
resulted in several drawbacks of
policing: corruption, inefficiency, and
disorganization.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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REFORM ERA
To remedy the weaknesses of policing
in the political era, O. W. Wilson
launched the first shift of the policing
paradigm by systematically testing the
ideas and theories in police
administration in 1960s.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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PROFESSIONAL MODEL
(TRADITIONAL POLICING)
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Community Policing in Taipei
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TRADITIONAL POLICING
EMPHASES
• rapidly responding to calls for service
• arresting offenders
• preventive patrol
• increased police visibility
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Community Policing in Taipei
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TRADITIONAL POLICING
CHARACTERISTICS
• quantifiable indicators were created to
measure police officers’ effectiveness
• more advanced technologies, efficient
communication, and mobility were utilized
• tighter management through centralized
command and control systems
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Community Policing in Taipei
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TRADITIONAL POLICING
IMPRESSION
• mobility
• power
• conspicuous presence
• control of officers
• professional distance from citizens
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TRADITIONAL POLICING
DIFFICULTIES
• Regardless of the quantitative indicators
used to measure police effectiveness, police
failed to meet expectations regarding their
capacity to prevent or solve crime.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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TRADITIONAL POLICING
DIFFICULTIES
• Fear of crime rose dramatically in cities
regardless of the actual level of crime (crime
rates).
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Community Policing in Taipei
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TRADITIONAL POLICING
DIFFICULTIES
• Police failed to play an impartial role, as
evidenced by increasing reports of police
mistreatment and brutality, especially to
minority citizens.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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TRADITIONAL POLICING
DIFFICULTIES
•Being more efficiency driven, police spent
less and less time with their clients, and
created an image of being indifferent and
distant to people.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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TRADITIONAL POLICING
DIFFICULTIES
• Some cities found themselves in fiscal
difficulties and could not sustain their
financial support for police to improve and
update their equipment and personnel.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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RISING
OF
COMMUNITY POLICING
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING
EARLY EFFORTS
• foot patrol
• mini-station
• neighborhood watch
• team policing
• problem solving oriented policing
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING
GOALS
• reduce high crime rate
• reduce racial conflict
• reduce fear of crime
• reduce disorder
• enhance quality of life
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING
DEFINITION
A renewed philosophy of policing, based on the
concept that police officers and private citizens,
working together in creative ways, can help
solve contemporary problems related to crime,
fear of crime, social and physical disorder, and
neighborhood decay
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING
JOINT EFFORTS OF BIG SIX
• police department
• community
• elected civic officials
• business community
• other agencies
• media
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING
WHAT IS?
• partnership
• an idea for the time
• a practical approach to problems
• getting back to people
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Community Policing in Taipei
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Community Policing
Traditional Policing
Problem solving basis
Incident driven basis
Proactive
(reemphasis on crime prevention)
Reactive(the ability to clear crime)
Long term effort
Short term perspective
Department-wide consent and
commitment
Individual capacity
Permanent beat assignment
Rotating beat assignment
(mobility)
Responsible as a team, all the time
Responsible for activities during duty
time
Focus on citizen satisfaction
Focus on handling the calls for
service
Officer\citizen empowerment
Top-down decision making
Decentralized autonomy
Centralized control and command
Measurement officers’ ability to solve
problem and to interact with citizens
Over-quantified performance
measurement
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Community Policing in Taipei
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POLICING IN TAIWAN
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Community Policing in Taipei
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POLICING IN TAIWAN
BRIEF HISTORY
• a Chinese + Japanese co-design
• long-existing community officer system
• Koban vs. Jin-Chin-Chu
• police operation district (POD)
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Community Policing in Taipei
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POLICING IN TAIWAN
PROFILE
• population: 22.3 million
• area: 36188 km2
• 76,000 police officers
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Community Policing in Taipei
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POLICING IN TAIWAN
POLICE’S STATISTICS
• 2 municipal police departments (Taipei
and Kaohsiung)
• 23 police bureaus in each county and
city Respectively
• 151 precincts corresponding to
township
•1568 substations, and 15,482 POD
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Community Policing in Taipei
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POLICING IN TAIWAN
MISSIONS OF POD OFFICER
• develop roots into community
• promote efficiency
• more flexible administration
• more effective crime prevention
• better knowledge of community
• improve community relations
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Community Policing in Taipei
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POLICING IN TAIWAN
STRATEGIES OF POD OFFICER
• household visit
• patrol (foot & bike)
• on-station duty
• back-up duty
• community service
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING
IN TAIPEI
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
TAIPEI
• capital of Taiwan
• culture, political & economy center
• population: 2.63 million
• population density: 28,000 per km2
• police personnel: 7900
• 14 precincts & 92 substations
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
DR. MA YIN-JEOU
• was elected the mayor of Taipei in 1998
•clearly identified “community policing”
the model of Taipei policing
•emphasizes on partnership building &
restore POD system
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
MAYOR MA’S PROMISE
•decentralize police operation--back to
grassroots: neighborhoods
•establish & empower the community’s
self-defense system
•re-emphasize crime prevention
•redesign police performance evaluation
•simplify police operations and restore
the essence of POD
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
MAYOR MA’S PROMISE
•establish a highly efficient 911 service
•citizen’s satisfaction guaranteed
•improve the benefits of police officers
•reprioritize the handling of burglary
cases
•construct a safety network for women &
children
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES
•The organizational culture of Taipei
Municipal Police Headquarters is
redefined to emphasize and reward the
individual behavior and collective efforts
in fighting crime and helping to solve
community problems.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES
•Crime control and prevention are recognized
as dual crucial components of policing.
•The organization must reinforce integrity and
ethical behavior in policing all the time in
order to regain community’s trust.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES
• Break down the isolation between
the police and the community, and
share the responsibility with the rest of
the community to pursue effective
public safety.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
PRECINCT COMMUNITY MEETING
•a mechanism to encourage cooperation
between the residents and police officers
•held periodically and open to public
•promote the awareness of crime prevention
and police efforts.
• 1,049 Precinct Community Meetings were
held, with attendance of 41,144 community
members
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
VOLUNTEER SQUAD
The volunteer Neighborhood Watch/Patrol
Squads patrol and watch their neighborhoods
reporting criminal activity and hazardous
situations. The squads work as the ears and
eyes for the police. So far, there have been
1,799 squads established and work as the
auxiliary police force to safeguard their
communities.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
CRIME PREVENTION PROGRAMS
•versatile programs were created to reduce
the fear of crime among citizen and to prevent
the likelihood of victimization.
•In the headquarters and 14 precincts,
advisory committees for crime prevention was
set up to supervise and inform crime
prevention campaigns.
• a radio show to promote the information of
public safety is on air every weekday
afternoon.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
SAFETY DEADLOCK HOTLINE
Women’s groups or individuals are encouraged
to report any area with problematic safety. So far
248 safety deadlocks were reported, and have
been alleviated by improving the lighting and
remove safety hazards, and increase patrol
frequencies in these worrisome areas
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
COMMUNITY PROTECTION NETWORK
Encourage and reimburse partly schools, banks,
shops, stores, and residence to install
surveillance video camera, alarm, and other
protection facilities. By far, 8698 household
security systems, 3464 alarm systems, and
7303 CCTV surveillance systems were installed.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
SECURITY CHECK & INSPECTION
To strengthen the self-protection capacity of
banks and jewelry shops, a check-list of security
facilities with 36 items were distributed to each
store/bank owner. The Police department also
inspect periodically to help the store owners
reduce the likelihood of victimization.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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COMMUNITY POLICING IN TAIPEI
CRIME STRATEGY MEETINGS
Taipei Police holds Crime Strategy Meetings
every other week. It is designed to help police
precincts target hot areas and hot criminals by
means of analyzing the patterns of crime with
computers, statistics, and mapping software.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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LESSONS LEARNED
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Community Policing in Taipei
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LESSONS LEARNED
• The greatest benefit of adopting community
policing is the regaining of people’s trust. In
Taipei, due to the economic recession and
political uncertainty, crime rates are actually
on the rise. However, when the community
sense the police’s efforts and sincere
engagement in the community policing, the
public bestow the police with full support.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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LESSONS LEARNED
•To avoid unnecessary resistance inside the
organization, the police department has to
incorporate the community policing
philosophy in all phases of training within the
police department on a regular basis. This
should include retraining of field skills/tactics
and community policing strategies.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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LESSONS LEARNED
•The Police Department should develop a
clearly and specifically defined vision and
mission statement through thorough
discussions and communications among the
members of the department. Without a clear
vision and mission statement, the strategies
and initiatives undertaken will have less
impact.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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LESSONS LEARNED
•Try to involve the stakeholders in the
community policing planning process: the
public, elected officials, the business
community, the media, etc. A well organized,
collaborative planning process is especially
critical to the success of implementation.
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Community Policing in Taipei
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LESSONS LEARNED
•The strong desire and support of the top
management must be obvious all the time.
The initiatives should be of significant
magnitude so that the entire police
department and the community are aware
of their accomplishment
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Community Policing in Taipei
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THE END
THANK YOU