再訪法實證研究概念與價值：以簡單量化方法研究我國減刑政策為例

Revisiting the Concept and the Merits of Empirical Legal Studies: Lessons from Taiwan’s Commutation Policy

臺灣法實證研究之歷史雖然久遠，但首個法實證研究資料庫的建立、首次全國法實證研討會的召開、系統性介紹法實證基礎概念和方法的論著，均始自2006年，故可稱之為我國「法實證研究新紀元之元年」。迄今十年，我國法實證研究領域雖有開展，但因研究方法日趨精細，法實證研究似乎漸成少數研究者的專利，而未能於我國法學研究社群中普及。於我國法實證研究之開展即將邁入第二個十年之際，本文在前人建立的基礎上，重新檢視法實證研究的定義、價值和研究取徑，並回應對於法實證研究的常見疑問。在研究方法方面，本文提倡一種簡單的量化方法（敘述統計），以簡明易懂的方式分析和呈現成果，希望改變法實證研究給人複雜難懂的印象，以促成更多研究者願意接觸法實證研究、瞭解實證研究成果、進而從事法實證研究。除了理論性的說明，本文亦以簡單量化方法，實際分析我國刑事司法系統發生的「民國96年減刑政策實施」及「民國97年監獄立即再度爆滿」特異現象。透過法實證方法，本文發現：在減刑政策實施前後，共有十項始終不為人知、或與我國社會大眾、政策制定者乃至專業法律人之認知差距甚大的重要事實，藉此具體呈現法實證研究及簡單量化方法，對於發現未知事實、細緻化政策制定、豐富法學研究的價值。

With the establishment of Taiwan Database for Empirical Legal Studies (ELS), the first national conference on ELS, and the first publication which introduced the fundamentals and methodology of ELS, Taiwan’s ELS has entered new era since 2006. Due to the sophisticated research methods, however, ELS in Taiwan seems to be restricted among few researchers rather than to be widely adopted in the past ten years. In order to promote ELS in Taiwan and engage more legal researchers into this field, this article revisits the essence of ELS through the groundwork laid by predecessors and attempts to reframe the concepts of ELS in a way that ELS could be more approachable to legal scholars without professional background in other disciplines. Also for this purpose, this article advocates conducting ELS by a simple quantitative research method, i.e. descriptive statistics, through which the methodology and results of ELS could be more easily understood and adopted by policy makers and legal scholars. In addition to the elaboration of ELS fundamentals, this article also applies the simple quantitative research method to two unusual phenomena occurring in Taiwan’s criminal justice system. First, Taiwan’s government granted a commutation policy in 2007 to relieve the overcrowded prisons and believed the recidivism rates would be as low as after previous commutation policies granted about 20 years ago. However, the high rates of recidivism were unprecedented in 2007. Second, the effect of relieving crowded prisons had only lasted for anunexpectedly short period. In 2008, prisons in Taiwan became more crowded than 2006, the year prior to commutation policy. Why would Taiwan’s government believe that statistics gathered two decades ago can still apply? Why the public and the government attributed the packed prisons to the recidivists released by the commutation policy, even though they actually only occupied 7% of the new coming prisoners in 2008? How to explain the new prisoners who were not released early by the commutation emerged in a historically large numbers in 2008? This article not only finds the answers to the questions above but discovers more crucial facts regarding policy making and legal research, which clearly shows the merits and indispensability of ELS.