Police House-Visits: Big Brother's New Tactic?

The "Police Power Enforcement Act" took effect on the first of this month. Article 15 of the Act designates individuals with past convictions for offenses such as homicide, robbery, aggravated theft, habitual theft, arson, extortion, kidnapping, organized crime, sexual assault, firearms offenses, or drug offenses who have completed their sentences or been released on parole, as well as former gangsters who have completed guidance or disciplinary training, as "security-risk populations." To prevent recidivism, the police are authorized to conduct regular visits to these individuals within three years of their sentence completion or parole. Pursuant to this authority, the Ministry of the Interior promulgated the "Regulations on Visiting Security-Risk Populations" on November 27, which took effect simultaneously with the Police Power Enforcement Act on December 1, further mandating monthly household visits by local police to assess subjects' employment, social connections, and daily lives, as well as gather other data necessary for maintaining public order and preventing recidivism. If a subject is not found at their registered household address during a visit, the police must investigate and notify the police agency in the subject's current location for assistance; if their whereabouts are unknown, they must report the case to the municipal or county/city police department for a missing persons search.

In short, these provisions amount to authorizing the police to place ex-convicts and former gangsters who have completed their sentences or been released on parole under official surveillance, and further empower the police to demand that the visited individuals disclose private personal information regarding their employment, social connections, and daily lives. Viewed from the perspective of the Constitution, however, these regulations clearly constitute an excessive infringement upon the human rights of the individuals visited, violate the principle of due process, and unduly expand police powers, inevitably raising concerns about the resurgence of a "police state."

First, since prisoners have already served their sentences or been released on parole, they have received due punishment for their past offenses and the state has corrected them through penal measures. Consequently, they are entitled to reform themselves and reintegrate into society—a purpose for which the state enacted the Rehabilitation Protection Act. Yet, Article 15 of the Police Power Enforcement Act presumes a likelihood of recidivism based solely on a past criminal record, publicly labeling them as a "security-risk population" within its statutory text. Not only does this completely negate the reformative effect of penal execution, but it also stigmatizes these individuals—who are otherwise entitled to rehabilitation protection—under the moniker of a "security-risk population." Furthermore, the monthly visits conducted by the police pursuant to this provision are tantamount to branding these individuals in their residential communities, effectively broadcasting to the neighborhood: "This person has a criminal record and could relapse at any moment! Beware!" Under the exclusionary and stigmatizing glances of neighbors, how can these individuals ever have the opportunity to reform and reintegrate into society? Having paid the price for their past mistakes yet still denied societal forgiveness, how many viable options remain other than bitterly returning to a life of crime? In this light, these regulations seriously infringe upon the right of the visited individuals to return to society. On the other hand, sacrificing this right for the sake of the public-order objective of "preventing recidivism"—while the actual result of such visits is likely to drive the reformed back into crime—lacks any legislative rationality and fails to satisfy the constitutional requirement of the principle of proportionality.

Second, what is the inevitable correlation between the private-life data of the visited individuals and the administrative measures taken by the police to prevent recidivism? How will the police apply such private data once acquired to prevent recidivism, and does acquiring this data guarantee the prevention of recidivism? Unless the police can answer these questions with the findings of relevant empirical scientific research, if they intend to judge the likelihood of recidivism based on these individuals' private lives, they should select specific subjects and gather information independently through other lawful means. They cannot simply reduce the costs of data collection by adopting a shotgun approach, indiscriminately forcing these individuals via home visits to surrender their private lives to the police, thereby needlessly sacrificing their right to reintegrate into society. Moreover, police officers making house calls to demand that individuals disclose their private affairs cannot help but evoke George Orwell's Big Brother, who is always watching you.

Furthermore, under the implementation of the aforementioned regulations promulgated by the Ministry of the Interior, visited individuals must accept home visits at least once a month. Although not explicitly stated in the regulations, if a visited individual wishes to move, they will evidently be forced to report to the police agency of their original registered domicile beforehand; otherwise, that police agency will likely report them as missing to municipal and county/city police departments nationwide due to the inability to locate them during a visit. Admittedly, this produces the practical effect of a "restriction on residence" to a considerable degree. Yet, according to the spirit of the principle of due process enshrined in Article 8 of the Constitution and numerous related Judicial Yuan Interpretations, coercive measures such as "restrictions on residence" should, in principle, be ordered by courts. Although current criminal procedure law creates an exception allowing prosecutors to exercise such power, restricting people's residence through the police—who are purely an administrative agency—can by no means be considered compliant with the principle of due process.

Finally, the "Statute for the Suppression of Bandits and Hooligans" was repeatedly declared unconstitutional by various Judicial Yuan Interpretations due to its severe infringement upon human rights. The paternalistic authoritarian ideology reflected in that statute—where the state acts as the parent and teacher of the people—has long been deeply detested by the public. Article 15 of the Police Power Enforcement Act, however, includes former gangsters who have completed their sentences among the targets of these visits, effectively expanding the scope of human rights violations originating from that statute, which is exceptionally inappropriate.

The regrettable provisions of Article 15 of the Police Power Enforcement Act mentioned above were not part of the draft Police Power Enforcement Act proposed by civil society organizations such as the Judicial Reform Foundation; rather, they were inserted by legislators during the Legislative Yuan's deliberations, ignoring the opposition of civil society groups. To avoid the undue expansion of police powers and the resulting infringement upon human rights, aside from relying on future legislative amendments to repeal these provisions, this article earnestly calls upon the relevant authorities to proactively petition the Judicial Yuan Justices to declare the regulations unconstitutional. Until then, police agencies should proactively refuse to exercise the visiting powers conferred by this article.

※ Published in: The Liberty Times