All Beijing police officers will be asked to report directly to
the public on their work and receive feedback from them twice a
year.
Face-to-face reports to local residents will be given at
meetings held between the 1st and 10th of June and December, and
officers will be evaluated and rated by citizens. Satisfaction
levels will then be included in police personnel records.
This system has been on trial in four of the city's districts
(Dongcheng, Chaoyang, Daxing and Shunyi) for six months. One police
officer said it has been good for inspiring greater public
confidence, even though he thought they already had strict enough
internal controls.
Reports will consider how well officers keep locals updated on
the outcomes and progress of cases as well as the quality, speed
and convenience of the service provided. It also aims to help
prevent malpractice and corruption, including the misuse of public
money, bribery, abuse of power, and random fine charging.
The scheme comes after outcry followed an announcement earlier
this year that retiring police officers in the city of Huzhou, Zhejiang
Province, would receive pensions of about 370,000 yuan
(US$44,704) as a reward for having unblemished 40-year records.
The decision became the target of much public criticism: a poll
of over 2,000 people on Sina.com.cn resulted in 60 percent voting
against the pension and 73 percent saying it would not help to
reduce corruption.
Opposition was largely on the grounds that a clean record should
be a basic expectation, not a bonus to be rewarded, and that the
system would involve spending a lot of additional money without
reducing levels of corruption.
According to sources at Beijing's Public Security Bureau there
are no plans to replicate the pension system in the capital, though
local police thought it would be a good idea, saying, "It is not
only a prompt but an award for honesty and duty."
Ren Jianming, vice director of the anti-corruption research
center at Tsinghua
University, said that, although the pension system may have
some benefits, making use of direct feedback from the public is
often the best way to root out social problems such as corruption
and malpractice.
(China.org.cn by Wang Ruyue November 12, 2004)
