Taipei City Police Department

 
    In accordance with the nation’s new “Southbound Policy” and the ideal of Taipei City as a multilingual metropolis, TCPD commissioner Jia-Chang Chen has instructed the Foreign Affairs Division to actively promote seminars on foreign languages and cultures. In recent years therefore, the division has set up classes on both policing-oriented and academical English, as well as various other languages, including Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese. These convenient avenues of learning are aimed to bolster officers’ understanding of overseas cultures as well as foster interest and expertise in a second or third foreign language.
 
   Pertaining to curriculum design, the Department combines multi-faceted personal development with actual on-the-field service ability, hiring university lecturers as well as foreign residents to school officers on authentic accents and share the unique aspects of each respective culture. Situation-based dialogue training is also implemented in order to prepare rank-and-file for confrontations with foreign nationals in the actual line of duty. The lively and information-packed nature of these discourses have met with resounding feedback from officers, and to this date, over 500 members of the TCPD’s standing police force has enrolled in one or more scheduled classes.
   
     The Department’s long-standing English Ability Enhancement Project has also benefited from this recent focus on civil servants’ language education. As of 2016-2020, multiple study groups aimed to raise employees’ English competence have yielded overwhelmingly positive results; 2020 alone saw 144 officers qualify for varying levels of the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT), of which 126 passed for the first time.
 
    Commissioner Chen indicated that owing to Taipei City’s status as an international hub of trade, commerce and travel for its multitudes of foreign denizens and visitors, it is the duty of the TCPD to enhance the linguistic ability of law enforcement so as to be able to respond adequately to cases involving foreigners; a statement mirroring Mayor Ko’s recent conviction on nurturing a language-adept civil administration. Therefore, the Department will continue on its trajectory to improve officers’ English proficiency as well as encourage that employees study a second foreign language, so as to gain further understanding and insight into non-native cultures and its peoples. The ultimate goal of this initiative is the foundation of an army of multilingual legal functionaries capable of upholding a safe and friendly environment for foreigners and citizens alike under the sanctified ideal of a “Multilingual Taipei”.