Law enforcement in China
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Law enforcement in China consists of an extensive public security system and a variety of enforcement procedures used to maintain order in the country. Along with the courts and procuratorates, the country's judicial and public security agencies include the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) and the Ministry of State Security (MSS), with their descending hierarchy of departments, bureaus (局, "Jú"), subbureaus (副局, "Fù jú"), and stations (所, "Suǒ").
Overview
The national security system is made up of the
Ministry of Public Security (MPS) oversees all domestic police activity in China. The ministry is responsible for police operations and detention centers and has dedicated departments for internal political, economic, and communications security. Its lowest organizational units are public security stations, which maintain a close day-to-day contact with the public. The People's Armed Police Force, with its 1.5 million personnel, is organized into 45 divisions. These include security police, border defense personnel, guards for government buildings and embassies, and police communications specialists.
The
The
Judicial and legal system
In 2004 the National People's Congress (NPC) amended the constitution so that for the first time the protection of the individual was incorporated as a constitutional requirement. Specifically, Articles 37 and 38 recognize the "freedom of the person" and the "personal dignity of citizens" as "inviolable."[2]
The 1997 Criminal Procedure Law allows the police to detain a person for up to 37 days before release or formal arrest, more vigorous
Police sometimes hold individuals without granting access to family members or lawyers, and their trials are sometimes conducted in secret. Detained criminal suspects, defendants, their legal representatives, and close relatives are entitled to apply for
Citizens have a constitutional guarantee of the right to use their own spoken and written language in court proceedings. Courts and procuratorates are advised by the constitution that they "should provide translations for any party to the court proceedings who is not familiar with the spoken or written languages in common use in the locality." The constitution provides for an independent
The legal system in Hong Kong is based in English Common law and remains unchanged for at least 50 years from 1997. The legal system in Macau is based in Portuguese legal system, as well as some aspects of German law, Chinese law, Italian law, and some English common law. Like Hong Kong, the Macau's legal structure will remain as is for at least 50 years from 1999. Both SARs have separate judicial systems, but the NPC is still the highest legal organ.
Key organizations
Ministry of Public Security (MPS)
The Ministry of Public Security is the principal
While public security considerations has a strong influence at all levels of administration, the police appear to wield progressively greater influence at the lower levels of government.
The organization of local public security stations can be inferred from the tasks with which the police are charged. Generally, each station has sections for population control, pre-trial investigations, welfare, traffic control, a detention center, and other activities.
The public security station (派出所) - the police element in closest contact with the people - is supervised by the public security sub-bureau as well as by local governments and procuratorates. The procuratorate assumes direct responsibility for handling any case it chooses, and it supervises investigations in those cases it allows the public security station to conduct. A great deal of coordination occurs among the public security organs, the procuratorates, and the courts, so that a trial is unlikely to produce a surprise outcome.
The public security station generally has considerably broader responsibilities than a police station in the other countries, involving itself in every aspect of the district people's lives. In a rural area it has a chief, a deputy chief, a small administrative staff, and a small police force. In an urban area it has a greater number of administrative staff members and seven to eighteen patrolmen. Its criminal law activities includes investigation, apprehension, interrogation, and temporary detention. The station's household section maintains a registry of all persons living in the area. Births, deaths, marriages, and divorces are recorded and confirmed through household checks. The station regulates all hotels and requires visitors who remain beyond a certain number of days to register. It also regulates the possession, transportation, and use of all explosives, guns, ammunition, and poisons.
Another important police function is controlling change of residence. Without such controls, larger numbers of rural residents undoubtedly would move to the overcrowded cities in search of better living standards, work, or education (see Urbanization in China). In April 1984 the State Council issued the "Tentative Regulations Governing People's Republic of China Resident Identity". The regulations, to be implemented over a period of years, required all residents over sixteen years of age, except active-duty members of the PLA and the People's Armed Police and inmates serving sentences, to be issued resident identity cards by the Ministry of Public Security. The picture cards indicated the name, sex, nationality, date of birth, and address of the bearer.
Special police operations involve the employment of agents and informants. Informants are used in surveillance of suspected criminals.
The criminal laws in force after January 1, 1980, restricted police powers regarding arrests, investigations, and searches. A public security official or a citizen could apprehend a suspect under emergency conditions, but a court or procuratorate was required to approve the arrest. The accused had to be questioned within twenty-four hours and his or her family notified of the detention "except in circumstances where notification would hinder the investigation or there was no way to notify them." Any premeditated arrest required a court or procuratorate warrant. The time that an accused could be held pending investigation was limited to three to seven days, and incarceration without due process is illegal.[3]
Two officials were needed to conduct a criminal investigation. They were required to show identification and to inform the accused of the crime allegedly committed before he or she was questioned. The suspect could refuse to answer only those questions irrelevant to the case.
The 1980 laws also provided that in conjunction with an arrest the police could conduct an emergency search; otherwise, a warrant was required. They had the right to search the person, property, and residence of an accused and the person of any injured party. They could intercept mail belonging to the accused and order an autopsy whenever cause of death was unclear.
In July 1980 the government approved new regulations governing police use of weapons and force. Police personnel could use their batons only in self-defense or when necessary to subdue or prevent the escape of violent criminals or rioters. Lethal weapons, such as pistols, could be used if necessary to stop violent riots, to lessen the overall loss of life, or to subdue surrounded but still resisting criminals. The regulations also governed use of sirens, police lights, and whistles.[4] The rules were changed in 1996, with the type of crimes made more specific.[5]
The relationship between the police officers assigned to neighbourhood patrols and the people is close. Police officers live in a neighbourhood on a long-term assignment and are expected to know all the residents personally. Their task is not only to prevent and punish crime but to promote desirable behaviour by
People's Armed Police (PAP)
The People's Armed Police (PAP) is the
PAP units are responsible for guarding party and state organizations and foreign
As of July 1, 2018, the China Coast Guard was transferred from civilian control of the State Council and the State Oceanic Administration, to the People's Armed Police, ultimately placing it under the command of the Central Military Commission.[6][7]
In June 2018, the China Coast Guard was granted maritime rights and law enforcement akin civilian law enforcement agencies in order to carry out contrast of illegal activities, keep peace and order, as well as safeguarding security at sea, when performing duties related to the use of marine resources, protection of marine environment, regulation of fishery, and anti-smuggling.[8]
Urban Administration and Law Enforcement Bureaus
Cities in China often have uniformed, but unarmed, urban management officers often referred to as "Chengguan" (城管; lit: "City Management Officers") under the control of the municipal governments of each province. Chengguan are hired and employed by the
Since the establishment of the Chengguan in 2001/2002, there have been numerous cases of Chengguan in cities across China using excessive violence and abuse of power. Numerous incidents have occurred over the years involving Chengguan seriously wounding innocents and even beating people to death in public.[9] Chengguan are known to have a notorious reputation due to corruption and nepotism in their hiring, training and recruitment and is the source of much resentment among local Chinese. In recent years efforts have been made to ameliorate the tense relation between the Chengguan and the general public, with mixed results.
Police vehicles
Police cars in the mainland are white with a dark blue swoosh painted on the side such as BYD e6.[10] China does not have a uniform fleet buying program so local departments typically buy from a variety of local dealerships. Volkswagen Santanas and Volkswagen Passats are the most common but other makes and models are present as well.
Historical background
However much the public security system may have been influenced by communist ideology and practice, it remained rooted directly in the traditional Chinese concept of governmental control through imposed collective responsibility. Even in the pre-imperial era, a system was proposed to organize the people into "groups of families which would be mutually responsible for each other's good behavior and share each other's punishments." The Qin (221-207 BCE) and Han (206 BCE-CE 220) dynasties made use of the concept, and the Song dynasty (960-1279) institutionalized it on a nationwide basis in the bao jia (tithing) system. It entailed the organization of family households into groups of ten, each unit being organized successively into a larger unit up to the county level of administration. Each family sent a representative to the monthly meeting of its unit, and each unit elected a leader to represent it at the next higher level. Since the head of each unit was responsible to the next higher level for the conduct of all members of his unit, the system served as an extension of the central government. Eventually, each group of families also was required to furnish men to serve in the militia. Bao jia, which alternately flourished or languished under later rulers and usually existed more in theory than in practice, was reinstituted during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911).
During the Qing period, the people's aversion to
Other practices for maintaining
In 1932
The Japanese were introduced to the bao jia system on Taiwan when they assumed control of the island after the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), and they found the system highly suitable for administering occupied areas. They instituted modified versions of it in north China after 1937. The Japanese imposed severe restrictions on the population, and the system aided in taking the census, restricting movement, and conducting spot checks. Each household had to affix a wooden tablet on the front door with the names of all inhabitants inscribed. Anyone missing or not on the list during an inspection by Japanese troops was assumed to be an insurgent. Since there were not as many Japanese troops in south China as in the north, the local leaders assisted the Japanese in administering the areas. They also disseminated propaganda at neighborhood meetings and established self-defense and youth corps.
The Communists were themselves products of Chinese society, and when they came to power in 1949 they liberally borrowed from these historical examples. They extensively organized the population and maintained the principles of mutual surveillance and mutual responsibility. They also retained the concept of self-defense forces. Communist control, however, exceeded that of bao jia or any other traditional system and extended into virtually every household. Under communist rule, the family was not considered an effective control mechanism. To achieve near-total control, a large number of administrative agencies and social organizations were established or adapted. Police forces resembling the
From 1949 to 1953, the newly established government of the People's Republic made use of the PLA, militia units made up of demobilized soldiers and other civilians, the police, and loyal citizens to put down resistance and establish order. Remnants of the Republic of China Armed Forces remained in pockets on the mainland, and communist efforts to enforce tax laws and agricultural rules provoked disturbances and riots. Extending responsibility for public order to include the police, military, and citizenry proved to be a highly effective arrangement, and the concept was written into the Common Program that preceded the 1954 state constitution.
The PLA and the militia continued to share responsibility for internal security and public order under the 1954 state constitution. The PLA's involvement in
Initially, the military tried to remain uninvolved. But on Mao's orders, the PLA, which had once been told to support (actually to acquiesce to) the Red Guards, moved in to quell the chaos that Mao had inspired. The PLA gradually took over public security functions by establishing military control committees to replace the government bureaucracy. Revolutionary committees were set up as provincial-level and local administrative organs, usually with a PLA cadre in charge, and order gradually returned. By the summer of 1968 the Red Guards were being disbanded, and mass trials were used to punish and intimidate rioters.
With nineteen of China's twenty-nine provincial-level people's revolutionary committees headed by PLA commanders, the military again was in charge of administration and security throughout the country, but it badly needed help from experienced police officers. A policy of leniency toward most former officials evolved, and some public security cadres returned to work. The PLA also recruited inexperienced people to form auxiliary police units. These units were mass organizations with a variety of names reflecting their factional orientation. Perhaps the best known unit was the "Attack with Reason, Defend with Force Corps" named for the militant slogan of Mao's wife, Jiang Qing. Public security forces were composed largely of non-professionals and lacked the disciplined informant networks and personnel dossiers previously used to maintain order.
Beginning in 1968, the authorities called upon the PLA to help remove millions of urban dwellers from the overcrowded cities and relocate them to the countryside and to transport cashiered officials to special cadre schools for indoctrination and labor. The migration to the country mostly involved students and other youths for whom there were not enough jobs or places in the school system within the cities. Yet despite the discontent these campaigns caused, reported crime declined after 1970. Increased concern over the threat from the Soviet Union in the wake of armed clashes on the Sino-Soviet border in 1969 forced the PLA gradually to return to barracks, and control of the country reverted to the civilian leadership.
The Beijing-based
The militia also participated in maintaining public order in the 1970s. Their involvement was especially evident in the 1973-76 period. In 1973 the Gang of Four, concerned over the transformation of the PLA into a more professional, less political, military force, took control of the urban militia from the PLA and placed it under local party committees loyal to them. For the next three years, the urban militia was used extensively to enforce radical political and social policies. It was the urban militia, along with the public security forces, that broke up the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square honoring the memory of Zhou Enlai in April 1976 — the event that served as the pretext for the second purge of Deng Xiaoping. At the time, in rural areas the militia was more under the control of the PLA.
Public security officials also made extensive use of the authority granted them to impose administrative sanctions by two sets of documents. These were the 1957 Regulations on
History of grass-roots organizations
Neighborhood committees in the 1980s continued to be heavily involved in law enforcement and mediation of disputes at the local level. Among the enforcement procedures these committees used to influence both thought and behavior were criticism and collective responsibility.
Before the reform era, aspects of Chinese society also contributed to shaping the contemporary structure for maintaining public order. During the beginning of the 1980s economic reforms, urban and rural dwellers rarely changed their residences. Amid the sprawling cities, neighborhoods remained closeknit communities. For the 80 percent of the population that lived in the countryside, home and place of work were the same. With little physical mobility, most villagers stayed put for generations and knew each other intimately. In such close-knit environments, where everyone was likely to know everyone else and noticed most of what happened, mutual surveillance and peer pressure was extremely effective.
The structure of the public security system remained extensive in the 1980s, and the authority of its forces exceeded that of most police forces in the West. Nevertheless, public security agencies required and received the assistance of a wide-ranging network of grass-roots organizations to mobilize residents' responses to the government's call for observance of laws, lead the people in maintaining social order and public security, and settle disputes among residents.
In urban areas an average of 11 patrolmen were responsible for controlling an area containing 15,000 or more residents. A patrolman could not know all the people and their particular problems, and therefore needed and enlisted help. The local people's governments and congresses shared responsibility for public order but had no special personnel for the task. The
To provide security beyond what could be provided by the police and to extend government control, a system of neighborhood or street committees had been established on a nationwide basis in 1954. The committees were charged with the responsibility of assisting the government in maintaining order. They usually controlled from 10,000 to 20,000 people and consisted of 3 to 7 full-time officials. In the late 1970s, the size and functions of neighborhood committees were expanded. The neighborhood committees were specifically responsible for maintaining public order and were accountable to the local people's congress.
Residents' committees and residents' "small groups," also established in 1954, were subordinate to neighborhood committees. These were the genuine grass-roots organizations, staffed by unpaid local residents elected by their neighbors. They directly involved the people in controlling their neighborhoods, and they reduced the demands on formal state institutions by maintaining surveillance for the public security forces and mediating most
Residents' committees and small groups were staffed originally by housewives and retired persons but involved others as their functions expanded. Their pervasive presence made them a primary means for disseminating propaganda, and their grass-roots nature allowed for effective use of peer pressure in mediating disputes and controlling troublemakers. Perhaps 4 or 5 percent of the adult population exercised some authority in what Western experts have described as "participatory democracy in an extended form." The functional subunits, the residents' committees and residents' small groups, were particularly important in controlling the people.
People's mediation committees, guided and supervised jointly by the basic people's court and the public security station, performed an important function within the residents' committees. They settled minor disputes and disagreements using conciliation and peer pressure. Mediation committees were established originally in communist areas during the Chinese Civil War (1945–49) as a natural outgrowth of traditional preferences for local mediation of disputes. Upon taking over the major cities of China in 1949, the Communists were confronted with a tremendous backlog of judicial cases. Mediation committees provided a means of resolving disputes while actively propagandizing and involving the people in the new government. Beginning in 1954 mediation committees were set up in neighborhoods, stores, schools, enterprises, factories, and workshops in the cities and in the production brigades and teams in the countryside.
In the 1980s the five- to eleven-member people's mediation committees were elected by popular vote to two-year terms with the option of being reelected. Members served without pay and could be removed at any time by the electors for dereliction of duty. They were responsible for settling disputes, strengthening popular unity, promoting production and order, and conducting propaganda activities. Parties in dispute came voluntarily to the mediation committee; people seemed to feel they should try mediation before proceeding to a lawsuit. Mediators' duties ranged from acting as go-betweens for parties who refused to talk to one another to defining issues, deciding questions of fact, and issuing tentative or advisory decisions. Mediation committees also exerted strong political, economic, social, and moral pressures upon one or both parties to gain "voluntary" compliance with the decisions. In addition to mediation committees, other officials, police officers, party members, and work supervisors were expected to serve as mediators. Members of the residents' committees and small groups who were not members of the mediation committees were also involved in the mediation process.
Illegal drug trafficking
See also
- Crime in China
- Court system of the People's Republic of China
- Law of the People's Republic of China
- Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China
- Public Security Bureau (PSB)
- People's Armed Police
- Ministry of State Security of the People's Republic of China
- Ministry of Justice of the People's Republic of China
- Terrorism in the People's Republic of China
- Custody and repatriation 1982 -2003
- Secretariat for Security (Macau)
- Macau Security Force
- Public Security Police Force of Macau
- Law enforcement in Hong Kong
- Judiciary of Hong Kong
- Department of Justice (Hong Kong)
- Judiciary of Macau
- Legal system of Macau
- Secretary for Justice (Macau)
References
Citations
- ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2024-02-15.
- ^ Constitution of China Archived 2013-07-26 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ The Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China Archived 2022-01-20 at the Wayback Machine, 73 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 138 (1982)
- ^ "人民警察使用武器和警械的规定[失效]". pkulaw.cn. Archived from the original on 2022-01-17. Retrieved 2020-12-12.
- ^ "中华人民共和国人民警察使用警械和武器条例" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-01-22. Retrieved 2020-12-12.
- ^ – Articles – China's coast guard to be under military police Archived 2018-03-22 at the Wayback Machine NHK World, March 22nd 2018
- Jane's Information Group. Archivedfrom the original on July 6, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
Legislation passed by the National People's Congress (NPC) on 22 June will implement changes announced in March that the CCG will come under the control of the People's Armed Police Force (PAPF) and, ultimately, the command of China's Central Military Commission (CMC).
- ^ Wei, Changhao (22 June 2018). "NPCSC Defers Vote on E-Commerce Law, Grants Law Enforcement Powers to Military-Controlled Coast Guard". NPC Observer. Archived from the original on 29 November 2020. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
- ^ "China arrests over beating death". BBC News. 2008-01-09. Archived from the original on 2019-07-28. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
- ^ "BYD delivers 500 e6 pure electric police cars to Shenzhen Public Security Bureau". BYD. January 10, 2013. Archived from the original on February 21, 2018. Retrieved February 21, 2018.
Sources
- This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. China: A Country Study. Federal Research Division. Government and Politics.
- Kam C. Wong, Chinese Policing: History and Reform (N.Y.: Peter Lang, 2009)
- Kam C. Wong, Police Reform in China (Taylor and Francis, 2011)
- Kam C. Wong, Cyberspace Governance in China (Nova Science Publisher, 2011)