The Cause and Effect Relationship Study of the Police's Approval Rating Survey Tactics with DEMATEL Approach - A Case Study of Kaohsiung City Police Department

Since 2004, the National Police Agency, the Ministry of the interior, Taiwan, has been conducting the survey on citizens’ satisfaction with public safety. Every Police Department has been very concerned about this probe, and has exhausted all possible ways and tactics to raise people’s approval rate on the police. After many years’ efforts, pretty good results have been achieved. This paper uses DEMATEL as an evaluation method to understand the causal relationship between the criteria adopted in the polling and the polling results that have been achieved. First of all, the implementation tactics used by all precincts of the Kaohsiung City Police Department (KCPD) were classified into 3 criteria for promotion, 4 criteria for implementation, and 2 criteria for management, totaling 9 criteria that constituted 3 facets. Based on the Expert Survey Method (Delphi), questionnaires were handed out to officers who were responsible for the survey at all precincts of the KCPD to obtain their ideas, which were simplified into 2 criteria for promotion, 2 criteria for implementation, and 1 criterion for management, totaling 5 evaluation criteria. Then especially designed questionnaires based on the DEMATEL were used. Phone calls were made randomly to deputy directors of precincts, chiefs of administration, traffic and secretary sections, and 29 completed questionnaires were returned. A diagram of causal relationship was made through the calculation based on the DEMATEL. The analysis of the prominence, causal degree and arrow direction indicted that 2 criteria referred to as social media and PR activity which raised the prominence of the polling were important in elevating people’s approval rate on the police. These two criteria were “affected criteria”. Traffic safety, solving criminal cases, and improved serving attitude are criteria with lower correlation level but they are classified as causal criteria, which are the foundation of police work. The conclusion is that police departments should actually perform well in the “causing criteria”, and then use social media and PR activity to make the public aware of their good performance, which will effectively raise people’s satisfaction with the police performance.