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Taiwan has been nicknamed the Kingdom of Scams in recent years, and according to statistics from the Criminal Bureau, the amount of fraud committed in the country in 2023 has reached 8.8 billion, and the number of cases has reached nearly 38,000, both reaching a new high in the past six years. It can be seen that the government policies and actions to combat fraud crimes not only fail to effectively curb the occurrence of crime, but may also have the opposite effect. People begin to distrust each other, and documents provided by the government must be double- checked or even ignored. Therefore, we cannot help but reflect on whether the continuous investment of manpower and resources in combating fraud crimes can effectively solve this serious "national problem", or is it a misplacement of resources? We should not treat all cases equally, and we must understand the "opportunity costs" behind them. To handle a fraud case, the judicial system basically needs to invest resources including police, prosecutors, judges and the cost of prisoners serving their sentences in prison. According to statistics from the Criminal Bureau in 2011, less than 30% of fraud cases involved amounts less than NT$30,000. The purpose of handling crimes is to make the suspect learn a lesson, thereby making the suspect feel fearful and avoid re-offending, and to compensate the victim for the infringement of his rights to maintain public order and protect social security. However, if the benefits obtained are seriously lower than the costs invested, does the country need to adjust the current way of handling such cases? California passed Bill 47 in 2014, which classifies some non-violent crimes as misdemeanors. The funds saved can be used for counseling, victim services or psychological treatments. We can think about whether this approach can use resources more effectively to achieve the goal of reducing the number of fraud crimes and thus 2 rebuilding social trust. This article analyzes the minimum cost required at each stage of a fraud case from the reporting of the case to the execution of the judgment. The data source is from 2017 to 2021. The average cost of handling a fraud case is calculated to be NT$65,058, and the average annual cost of handling all fraud cases is NT$1,266,082,491. In an environment where global fraud crimes continue to be rampant, in order to effectively measure the effectiveness of the anti-fraud strategies proposed by the government, the number of cases cannot be used as the only criterion. After calculation, it was found that our country’s interception amount rate (interception amount/(interception amount + defrauded amount)) has increased from 31% in 2021 to 50% in 2023, and the interception number rate (interception number/(interception number + number of fraud cases) )) from 25% to 28%, thereby reducing the fraud group’s return on investment and reducing the willingness of subsequent personnel to invest. And the effects of policies usually have continuity. If we measure the action plan for the new generation anti-fraud strategy proposed by the Executive Yuan from this perspective, it can be said to be quite effective. |