A Three-Dimensional Analysis of Drug Enforcement Policy in Taiwan

For the last decade, Taiwan has faced drug dealing and drug using as an increased phenomena. The dominant response of government to this dramatic evolution was (and already is) a metropolitan drug enforcement through periodical and local massive arrest policy. But the drug problem continues to increase, and policy does not work in the manner in which we might expect. The application of this policy is accomplished through three steps: the first one is the decision making of policy by criminal investigation bureau, the second one is the elaboration of local massive arrest strategy by police high officer, and the third one is first-line policemen application of the policy. In each step, they have their own objectives and expectations. The original policy has evolved over time, but we don’t know the influence of this evolution to fight drug trafficking. Our research plan is to understand what is the real distortion, and what is the effective influence of this distortion on the policy efficiency. We will use the organizational anomie theory (we also use to analyze the community police in another research) as cognitive base. We will also use the three dimensional analysis as methodology. The three dimensional analysis is based on the clear differentiation of: the first dimension, what we wish, what we want to, what we project and institutionalize. The second dimension is what it is in fact, how do each one accept or reject the institutionalization, what do they practice and what do they not. The third and last dimension is what must be to ameliorate the policy. A three dimensional analysis will help us to understand the reason of distortion, to understand the real attitude of the actor, and to find some way to adapt efficiently the concept of drug enforcement. To accomplish the three dimensional analysis, in each dimension we will conduct an interview the three steps actors: decision step (member of the criminal investigation bureau), elaboration step (police officers) and application step (first line policemen).