A study of the quality of police services in exercising public power in Taiwan

Abstract

Meetings and parades are channels for people to express opinions in Taiwan and in other democratic countries. The quality of services of the police when handling public gatherings and maintaining peace and order are the main focus of this research. Since the police often face the challenge of dealing with large crowds of people, in terms of the quality of police services, the disparity in people’s opinions of the quality of police services serves as a reference in determining people’s satisfaction level towards police services. In this research, five dimensions in business management quality of services proposed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles), and two special dimensions (timeliness and legitimacy) in professional police work are adopted to analyse the quality of police services. It is found that there is a significant difference between people’s expectations and perceptions of the quality of police services. Based on fuzzy analysis, the quality of police services when they are carrying out their work is not satisfactory. In the future, police officers should review the service policies. Finally, four suggestions for police services are proposed in this article. It is expected that they will help enhance the quality of services rendered by police officers.

Keywords:

• police
• public power
• service quality
• fuzzy analysis
• Taiwan