Singapore recently proposed legislation under which fraudsters could face 6 to 24 strokes of the cane. KMT legislator Hung Meng-kai believes Taiwan should consider learning from Singapore's measures as an effective deterrent to crime. Doctor Chiang Kuan-yu, however, presented a different viewpoint.
Hung Meng-kai stated that Taiwan continues to suffer from rampant fraud, and even after repeated legal revisions, the root of the problem remains unaddressed. He and several blue-camp legislators believe that caning could be one of the means to curb scam syndicates. In contrast, DPP legislator Chuang Jui-hsiung criticized that caning is not a modern form of criminal law, warning that setting such a precedent would lead to never-ending consequences and cause a regression in human rights.
On the 17th, Dr. Chiang Kuan-yu posted on Facebook expressing a different view. He pointed out that caning does not only concern the act itself, as it could lead to complicated follow-up issues such as wound infections, cellulitis, or abscesses requiring surgery. At that point, who will pay the medical costs—health insurance or the offender themselves? In addition, Singaporean law stipulates that a doctor must be present at the caning and must first determine if the offender is “physically able to withstand it.” The procedure must be halted immediately if the doctor deems it unfit to continue. Chiang questioned whether this requirement would introduce other issues in Taiwan.
Chiang bluntly remarked that if a doctor gives consent and the offender later suffers complications such as sepsis from an infected wound or succumbs to a drug-resistant bacteria, who would be responsible? “Our standards and national circumstances might be quite different from Singapore’s,” he noted, adding that due to global warming, soft tissue infections are increasingly fatal—a serious issue for hospitals.
● Netizens: Wound Complications Are Well Deserved
Many netizens commented that offenders deserve no sympathy: “If you get a wound infection after a caning, that’s just your just deserts,” “Of course they should pay out of pocket,” “If you don’t want to pay, let the wound heal naturally.” Others pointed out that the monetary losses from fraud in Taiwan are enormous: “Fraud costs Taiwan over NT$400 million every day. Even if you gave doctors NT$400 million to treat these people, that would be more than enough.”
On October 14, the Singapore Parliament had its first reading of the ‘Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill.’ Of particular note, the government decided to invoke caning as a measure to deal with the rampant problem of fraud.