A Study of Methods Employed by KMT Regimes to Prohibit Gangsters (1927—1955)

Legislation cracking down on hooligans can be traced back to the “Ordinances Governing the Punishment of Local Tyrants and Scofflaw Gentry” issued by the National Government during the Northern Expedition in 1927. This Ordinance was the only regulation with the status of law for clamping down on hooligans prior to the Anti-Hooligan Ordinances for the Period of Communist Rebellion adopted in 1985. The special criminal courts and procedures for apprehending offenders and administering justice set up on its authority differed a great deal from methods that tended to lean toward administrative procedures and rehabilitative measures used later. The Ordinances Governing the Punishment of Local Tyrants and Scofflaw Gentry defines “local tyrants and scofflaw gentry” as the masterminds behind various types of illegal activities, while hooligans are only tools directed by them. With the later promulgation, however, of the Act Governing the Punishment of Police Offenses, the Ordinance to Strengthen the Surveillance of Hooligans (adopted after World War II), 1949 Guidelines for Cracking down on AWOL Members of the Military, the 1950 version of the Guidelines for Cracking down on Hooligans during the Period of Martial Law in Taiwan Province, the 1952 version of the Guidelines for Cracking down on Hooligans during the Period of Martial Law in Taiwan Province, and the 1955 version of the Guidelines for Cracking down on Hooligans during the Period of Martial Law in Taiwan Province, the Kuomintang Government’s definition of the term “hooligan” became increasingly broad. The basic wording describing illicit behavior and regulations, however, did not differ to any significant degree from the description of the behavior of local tyrants and scofflaw gentry in Article 2 of the 1927 Ordinances Governing the Punishment of Local Tyrants and Scofflaw Gentry. From this, it is clear that the Kuomintang Government’s substantive regulations for clamping down on hooligans was influenced very little by the period of Japanese occupation as it drew a great deal from its experience in ruling mainland China prior to the war. As such, it is inappropriate to trace the origins of the Guidelines for Cracking down on Hooligans during the Period of Martial Law in Taiwan Province to the “Regulations Governing Disbanded Troop Turned Vagrant” of the period of Japanese occupation.urthermore, as to agencies responsible for disciplining hooligans, the Kuomintang Government established the Provisional Guidelines for Skills Training Shelters for Disciplining and Educating AWOL Troops to address the issue of deserters from the war against the Communists while in mainland China. Other methods adopted to correct vagrants, such as deserters, include the issuing of the Provisionary Guidelines for Dealing with Disbanded Troops Turned Ruffians during Emergency Periods and the establishment of Labor Corps during the Sino-Japanese War. These employed “concentrated corvee labor and military management techniques to reform and provide education and labor skills” that continued to be used in Taiwan until after WWII. Regardless of how names changed, such as the Labor Training Camps prior to the 228 Incident or the Professional Discipline Corps and Vagrant Discipline Training Center set up later by the Security Command, or how competent authorities integrated guidance and skills training concepts, the military management nature used in them remained the same. The Japanese colonists had similar disciplinary agencies prior to WWII which the Kuomintang Government could put to its advantage. The abovementioned Vagrant Discipline Training Centers were set up on similar sites called “開導所” used by the Japanese during the period of Japanese occupation and the Labor Training Camps were built on the site of a youth training center used in the period of Japanese occupation in Dazhi, Taipei.inally and well worth mentioning is the fact that the office of governor-general used its very tight and highly disciplined police system for cracking down on disbanded troops turned ruffians during the period of Japanese occupation, while the Kuomintang Government depended on the armed forces both before and after the war to maintain public order. Whether clamping down on deserters or hooligans, the Kuomintang Government used the same method: rounding up all suspects, then placing them into categories and dealing with them accordingly. This is perhaps because since the establishment of the Nationalist Government by the Kuomintang Government and throughout the period of martial law following WWII, the government had very clear and definite enemies and to the government’s thinking, hooligans were simply the arms and legs of these enemies. As such, they had to be eradicated to the last person. This perhaps explains to some degree why the Kuomintang Government tended to use executive orders to crack down on the formation of organizations by hooligans up until 1985.