Can I get some help to get the mandarin. Police constantly don’t want to. This time we have a theft. No proof other than pictures of damage and missing things.
What I want is an official police report, which throughout my time in Taiwan police are VERY reluctant to do.
This time I am going in hot, but need the proper mandarin so I don’t look like a crazy big nose.
Any help appreciated.
報案3聯單 is the paperwork you should be getting when you file a report. If they won’t help you go to an actual police station, not a dispatcher. You know them because they’re quite large. They take suspects there for processing if arrested.
Thanks man, will check out this term. Any others that may be related?
報案3聯單 is obsolete. Now you should get a 受（處）理案件證明單.
I’m not sure, just that you are reporting a theft and all that…
By the way always report it if it happens, because even if the police does nothing it establishes a pattern, and if they do eventually catches the thief they will connect the dots.
But yea, take any evidence you gathered and 報案
I’m not sure how their English ability is but they SHOULD have some English skills, as you have to have gone to a 4 year college to be a cop here.
I think your wife should be able to help with this.
Cheers. I can speak decent enough mandarin, but not these legal type things. Will be going in with the wife, so that’s all good. I just need the terms. The police really try hard to not do paperwork, sometimes we have resorted to yelling at them to get their supervisor to come. It is a bit frustrating. But if we have the right term, it should alleviate many minutes of explaining to them what we need them to do.
Issue is, wife doesn’t know much about legal systems, so doesn’t know the terms either…
Shouldn’t need a lawyer or know legal terms to file a police report.
If the local precinct won’t help for whatever reason the larger police stations where suspect is taken into when arrested for crime would work better, as they will have detectives and others who might be better at dealing with unusual situations. Most the time the cops at dispatchers deal with traffic issues. I guess it would be less of an issue in Taipei but in the countryside, people tend to get lazy at times.
Next time invest in CCTV cameras. They got motion activated camera that starts recording when it senses motions. This would cut down on disk space.
“我要報警” (Wǒ yào bàojǐng — I want to file a police report) followed by “請你做你的工作” (Qǐng nǐ zuò nǐ de gōngzuò — please do your job) is usually 丟臉 enough for them to stop dilly-dallying. You can also let them know that you’re recording the interaction and will happy to take this to their supervisor if they don’t want to do their damn job.
You sound like you’ve made a lot of police reports in Taiwan.
Soooooo many. And I never ever leave the station until I am certain there is a record that has been filed.
That’s quite unusual, isn’t it?
I mean, I called 119 for the first time in my life a few months ago because of an emergency, but other than that I’ve never spoken to the police in my 40 years of life.
When I first got here there were some seriously problematic, manipulative, legitimately sociopathic and well-connected people with access to all of us foreigners’ apartments (keys to every apartment and room), bank account information, etc. Serious shit happened and people who should be rotting in prison instead go about their lives, continuing to be the same sociopaths with connections, hurting more people, today. But each time we went to the police, regardless of why they refused to let us file reports, there was “it was probably one of your friends”, “you probably left the door unlocked”, “you drank too much alcohol that night” and other absolute gaslighting that really did have all of us questioning everything, as gaslighting goes. So I’ve learned from that experience. When you know where you left something and it’s not there, someone was in your apartment.
I thought, after we knew what was really going on but it was too late to do anything, that this was a 關係 issue, but I was with a Taiwanese friend who left their phone in a cab once and it took the whole afternoon to finally get someone to actually let us file the police report. The cab driver had dropped the phone off at the police station later that same day, yet the police didn’t bother notifying this friend until six months later. Then, when the friend went to pick it up, unlocking the phone on the first go was not enough “evidence” that the phone belonged to this person, who had already given them their ID number and the phone’s serial number back when they filed the report. The police insisted that the friend needed to shown photos of themself in order to get their phone back. So, first they didn’t want to bother with the police report, then they didn’t inform the person who admitted they had misplaced their phone, not had it stolen, that it was recovered, then they hung on to it for half a year, then they still didn’t want to give it back without adding additional hassles and, quite frankly, intrusion of privacy.
The police in Taiwan are absolute morons. They’re lucky guns are banned and most people are too busy staring at their screens all day to even think of committing crimes. But one of the reasons Taiwan’s crime rate is “so low” is that it’s too much work to file a police report in the first place.
Cheers for that. I am good with mandarin in general. But the exact term Is what we were having troubles with.
I believe your suggestion of “報警” is more similar to call the police. Summon them if you will haha. I double checked with a couple taiwnaese family member.
I am leaning towards more like a report, a peice of paper that describes my complaint. What @Taiwan_Luthiers seems likely right. Still checking, though i am on night patrol currently so can’t talk with wife for a few hours. Trying to catch the fucks red handed.
Tilaiwanluthiers suggested: 報案3聯單 and 報案
Wife mentioned: 備案
I am more than comfortable yelling at police and doing things that way. Issue this time it’s right in my back yard and guabxi, face etc in this situation is sticky. I need to go in literate this round.
Once ita less real and I don’t need to camp out all night, will reply further on @nz point because crime here is very common despite what some thunk. And I agree with his/post. It’s a problem. Here. More importantly, inept justice system is a REAL issue.
But for now, I just need the damn word to tell them to do, then I can yell at them to do it haha.
Like I said above. There is no longer a 報案3聯單. They now only issue 「案件證明單」.
Wow, that sounds very rude. I don’t recommend it unless they appear to be not doing their jobs.
That only means they will take a note in their police diary, and there won’t be any further investigations or actions. I don’t think that’s what you want. If you are concerned about them brushing you off, call 110, and they won’t be able to 吃案…
Thanks for the explanation. Have sent the wife 案件證明單 to read up on.
Indeed I don’t want a diary note. I want an official letter head peice of paper with a stamp that describes the incident. I would be happier than a pig in shit with simply that
I am very much aware we won’t catch the person, but want a record, just in case. And also because this land is rented from the military and they need status reports. It is not really cool to phone them up and ask, for many complicated reasons.
Just about everybody still uses this term though, including the police.
When they don’t let you file a police report when something is happened that requires a police report for any further action to take place, they aren’t doing their jobs. That’s the point
I am in full agreement on this, especially given how common it seems to be! But rest assured, I can rip a cop a new one in mandarin just fine. So i wont be using rhat terminology, i will revert to psycho looking and in taiwanese for that if need be lol. My goal is to avoid that, especially in this community, and just go in with proper words to hopefully prevent me having to push them to do their job. I know it seems retarded, but such is life! That’s my issue, lack of the proper terms.
That said. Wife has been checking it out. I will quote her because my mandarin reading/writing level is embarrassingly bad.
備案 is only recording the case.
Police write on 案件紀錄表or工作紀錄簿
報案 is want police to investigate or we want to sue someone, will write 報案3聯單.
How does this check out with fluent in both mandarin and law? Seem right?
We don’t want to sue nor investigate (because I know that is impossible to find the person, mountain land theft). Perhaps the first one is right? Record it, get a sheet of paper stating so officially. That’s what I really want.
I will investigate myself the old way.
Just that next time have CCTV camera on your property so the police might know the person. Usually people who do this have a pattern of doing it.
No electricity, no government infrastructure. We make our own roads.This isn’t a city or town. So it’s pointless. We have more game cameras on order, but weren’t any at this location. Basically no proof, only evidence of damage. So that aspect doesn’t matter, appreciate your suggestions though.