Community Policing in China: A New Era of Mass Line Policing

Abstract

Since 1949, policing in China has been guided by the mass line, whereby the work of the police is to work for the masses. Substantial emphasis was put on the mobilization of the masses at the grassroots level. Policing in China is essentially community policing, although the concept per se was not deployed until very recently, as observed by overseas community policing pioneers such as John Anderson in the UK and F. L. Masala in the United States (see Lu, 2001). However, with the implementation of the reform and open-door policy since 1978, the level of crime has escalated and the escalation trend shows no signs of abating despite successive waves of strike-hard campaigns. In the 1990s some cities started introducing community policing to fight crime and improve police-public relations. As an imported concept, community policing was widely embraced by some, namely, practitioners and academics. Others questioned its validity and challenged that it was similar to the guideline of combining the special work of the police with the mass line, long used by the Chinese police (Zhou, 2003); thus, it was mere repetitions of long-term practices and contained nothing new (Leng, 2003). So if the policing model prior to the economic reform is by nature communityMass Line Policing: 1949-1980 171 Strike-Hard Policing: 1981-2001 174 Community Policing: Since 2002 176 Community Policing in Shenzhen: BLSCC 177Organization 178 Measures for Safety 179 Measures for Civilization 180 Rating System and Outcomes 181Discussion and Conclusion 181 References 182policing, then is the current policing model labeled as “community policing” nothing more than simply old wine in new bottles?*China has a rather low police-public ratio, compared with other jurisdictions. Currently the police-public ratio is estimated at 1.38/1,000.† How has community policing successfully operated in an overpopulated country with an insufficient police force? As Skogan (1990) has noted, certain features of American society severely limit the potential effectiveness of community crime prevention efforts, such as cultural diversity, high mobility, and strong orientation toward individual rights rather than collective responsibilities, which make it difficult for neighborhood residents to reach a consensus about the need to take specific action, mobilize, and work together. Drawing on Putnam (2000), Klinenberg (2001) questions whether we can achieve “bowling alone and policing together.” Although China was traditionally regarded as a communitarian society, the recent decades of economic reform have fundamentally transformed the whole society. So how has community policing developed in current Chinese society, when compared with China before its economic reform took place?