Laws Information

法規資訊
Title: Police Duty Act
Am Date: 2008-07-02
Legislative History: Amended and promulgated by President Order Hua-Tsung (1)-Yi-Tzu No. 09700112231 on July.2, 2008.

Transaction

Amended

Article 5
Police beat (Hereinafter referred to as the “beat”) is the basic unit of a police organization. It is under the charge of an individual police officer.

Article 6
Police beats are allocated according to the following criteria:
1. Autonomous district: Basically, each village is planned as a police beat. If the size of a village or neighborhood is too small, two villages could be combined into one police beat. If the size of a village or neighborhood is too large, it could be divided into two or more police beats.
2. Population: Every two thousand residents or five hundred households contribute to a police beat.
The aforementioned allocation of police beats in the preceding paragraph shall be also subject to crime incidence, local characteristics, the number of police force, complexity of tasks, the size of the area, traffic conditions, telecommunications facilities and future trend in development and shall be adjusted accordingly.
As to the criminal investigation police and foreign affairs police, they may also allocate their beats in accordance with the abovementioned criteria.

Article 7
The police stations and substations serve as operational units, responsible for allocating beats, scheduling shifts, and performing and supervising duties.
The standards of the establishment of police stations and police substations are set by the National Police Agency, Ministry of the Interior.
When a remote beat is not available for joint duty with other beats, a police post can be set up and staffed with one officer to perform duties alone.

Article 11
The types of general duty are as follows:
1. Household Visit: The beat officer visits households on his/her beat to prevent crimes, provide services, and identify social security issues. The Regulations Governing Household Visit shall be enacted by the Ministry of the Interior.
2. Patrol:The police station shall map out the patrol route where the duty officers are assigned to patrols , along with inspecting and questioning suspicious persons, issuing tickets and other general duties to detect and prevent hazards.
3. Stop and Check: The duty officers conduct inspections or traffic stops at public places or designated and specific roads to question suspicious people, enforce laws and traffic regulations or other statutory missions.
4. Guard: Duty officers assigned to certain guard posts which are set at the specific spots of important areas or high- accident locations are required , not only to watch, guard and control but also responds to reports, answer inquiries, direct the traffic and carry out general police duties.
5. Call-Responding at Duty Counter: A duty counter is set at each police station behind which an on- duty is placed to manage calls, complete report, notify the supervisors and convey orders. If necessary, they shall stand in the doorway to the environment and guard the police station.
6. Stand-By: On-duty officers scheduled to stand by inside the police units should be well-uniformed and ready for mobilization in response to emergencies or back-ups for incidents.

Article 12
Household visit is an individual duty that beat officers are in charge. While the patrol, stop-and-check, guard, call-responding at duty counters, and stand-by are general duties , which are performed by duty officers who work rotating shifts according to the duty rosters.
The aforementioned general duties in the preceding paragraph may be rotated patrol according to the number of duty officers and public order situations. Nevertheless, patrol shall be the primary duty to be scheduled.

Article 15
A normal working day is a period of 24 hours, starting at 00:00 and ending at 24:00. The period of time from 00:00 to 6:00 is the mid-night shift; from 18:00 to 24:00 is the night shift, and the rest of time is the day shift. The time to restart the tour of duty is authorized by each police department to designate.
A normal tour of duty is eight hours a day. If necessary, it can be extended and the length of duties is subject to the situation. Duty officers are scheduled two days off a week but they might be canceled in case of emergencies. Those police officers may be required to stand by at police organizations to respond to situations.
The aforementioned shift-length extension, day-off suspension, or standing by to perform duties shall be made up afterwards.

Article 17
The duty planning and supervisory units shall set a duty-arrangement standards which must properly plan the grouping, alternation of duties, and length of shifts for line officers to perform rotationally, and comply with the following rules:
1. The duty hours must be circadian coverage without any lapses.
2. Varied duties, alternately scheduled based on the necessity, shall enable every officer to work rotating shifts averagely.
3. The labor and rest in a tour of duty shall be even to help duty officers recover spirit and physical strength.
4. Standby police force shall be adequately controlled on a frequent basis in order to fill in for absences and assist in handling unexpected situations.
5. Every police officer must have time for further educations or in-service training.
The aforementioned arrangement of duties in the preceding paragraph shall follow the three-shift rotation system or other shift pattern if it is deemed adequate to meet actual needs. When operational units are staffed with three to five police officers, the half-day alternation system may be adopted. If there are only two police officers, the whole-day alternation system may be adopted; and duty in the mid-night shift could change into on-call and staying in workplace.

Article 19
When police departments must carry out individual duties and general duties separately to meet the circumstances’ needs, the precincts, stations and substations shall be respectively mobilized as duty units in which police officers were assigned to household visits If necessary, they may expand the beats and assign other police officers to rotationally carryout the general duties.

Article 24
Roll call shall be conducted before the shift officers carrying out duties. Roll call are classified into the following type:
1. Base roll call: conducted at station and sub-station level.
2. Joint pre-duty: briefing at precinct level.
3. Special operation roll call: conducted before a special operation or emergent tasks.

Article 25
Roll-call shall be conducted as follows:
1. Inspection of personal grooming and duty gear.
2. Announcement of important policies and orders.
3. Review on previous shift’s incidents and highlight of the priorities in the current shift.
The pattern, time and frequency of the aforementioned roll-call in the preceding paragraph shall be regulated by the respective police departments, depending on those field units’ operational conditions.