community policing in china: philosophy, law and practice

International Journal of the Sociology of Law 2001, 29, 127^147doi:10.1006/ijsl.2001.0146, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

Community Policing in China:Philosophy, Law and Practice

KAM C.WONGDepartment of Government and Public Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong,Hong Kong

Our public security work . . . is not to have matters monopolized by theprofessional state agencies. It is to be handled by the mass. . . The massline principle . . . is to transform public security work to be the work ofthe whole people. . .

Minister of Public SecurityLui Ruixing (1994)

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that if American crime prevention isa device by which citizens assist the police, in China it is seen as a meth-od by which police provide back-up services for citizens. . .

Professor Dorothy Bracey (1984)

Introduction

Crime prevention through community policing is a world-wide growth indus-try (Skolnick & Bayley 1988). England (Scha¡er 1980), Singapore (Quah &Quah 1987), and Canada (Friedmann 1992: 183) have variously introducedcommunity policing to ¢ght crime in the 1980s. In the U.S.A. community po-licing originated as a ‘quiet revolution’ seeking recognition in the 1970s (Sher-man 1974; Kelling 1988) and has since become a tour de force to be reckonedwith in the 1990s (Bayley & Shearing 1997). However, the community policingmovement has not been universally well-received. While the Japanese policehave huge success with their koban as community centers (Bayley 1976: 15^32),the Australian police have to work hard to keep their neighborhood watchalive (Bayley working paper; Solo¡ working paper) and the Hong Kong

This paper is based on data collected for an ongoing research project looking at law and socialcontrol in China under the auspices of the Chinese Law Program at the Chinese University ofHong Kong. This paper was presented at the Fifth International Police Executive Symposium,Hague, Netherlands, 2^5 June 1998.

0194-6595/01/ 020127+21 $35�00/0 # 2001 Academic Press

128 Community Policing in China

police have had di⁄culties in engaging the public in tending to their commu-nity problems (Chiu 1996: 60^61).

Turning to China, social control has always been provided for by the localcommunities, grassroots organizations, and intimate associates. Historically,much of social life was regulated by grassroot and indigenous social institu-tions (Van der Sprenkel 1962), such as family (Wilbur 1978: 131^175), clan(Liu 1959), village (Smith 1899; Hu 1964; Yang 1945), guild (Chan 1975: 28^40), and voluntary association (Wong 1971: 62^73). More recently, the People’sRepublic of China (PRC) authorities mobilized and empowered the masses totake control of their own community (Luo 1994: 57; Bennett 1977: 121^139).

The Chinese experience in community policing, until recently, has been apositive one, as made evident by community solidarity (Topley 1967: 9^44),communal activism (Li & You 1994: 124), and a low crime rate (Li & You1994: 40). This compares favorably with the U.S. experience (Skogan 1990),which is characterized by community fragmentation (Reiss 1983: 43^58; Ro-sen 1990: 9^12), apathy (Wilson & Kelling 1982: 29^38), dependency (Gurwit1933: 33^39), clienthood (Peak & Glensor 1996: 46^47), and a high fear ofcrime (Skogan & Max¢eld 1981: 121). The contrast between U.S. and Chinesecommunity policing in terms of philosophy and practice is great and deservesfurther in-depth investigation (Pepinsky 1973, 1975; Braithwaite 1989) and cri-tical examination (Birkbeck 1993).

This is an investigation into rural community policing of PRCöphilosophy,law, practice, and issues. This paper is divided into six parts. Part I states thefocus and justi¢cations of this research into PRC rural community policing;Part II discusses the philosophy of Chinese community policing, past as wellas present; Part III gives a brief overview of the laws of community policingin the PRC; Part IV describes PRC rural community policing in practice;Part V identi¢es some of the salient issues and emerging problems associatedwith rural community policing in the PRC; Part VI summarizes as it discussesthe lessons provided by this investigation into PRC community policing.

Research Focus

There is no basic English text on policing PRC. There are a few dated intro-ductory texts on the PRC criminal justice system (Cohen 1968; Brady 1982;Leng & Chiu 1985) and research monographs into PRC social control meth-ods and measures (Troyer et al. 1989;Wilson et al. 1977; Dutton 1992) that touchupon policing tangentially. More recently, there are some articles written onaspects of policing in the PRC (Johnson 1984; Ward 1995a,b; Patterson 1988;Wong 1994, 1996a,b, 1997; 1998a,b). There is very little research on crimeprevention and community policing in China; the rare exception being theinvestigation by Zhang and colleagues into community crime prevention inTinajian City (1996). This research gap resulted in part from a general lack

K. C.Wong 129

of scholarly interest, as exacerbated by research di⁄culties posed by language,culture, and secrecy.

Students of PRC rural community policing have to look elsewhere for infor-mation and inspiration. Some often neglected literature sources are the histor-ical accounts of communal rural social control at the family, clan, village,community and neighborhood level (Liu 1959; Hsiao 1960; Madsen 1984;Wen 1971). Until very recently, Chinese rural communities were relativelyclosed, stable socio-political units, so studying the past helps to inform thepresent. The other valuable sources are the few richly chronographed ethno-graphic studies of PRC village social life. They provide rare empirical data onthe day to day operations of rural-communal social control in China (Hinton1966; Parish & Whyte 1978; Huang 1986). Finally, PRC criminologists and po-lice scholars have provided some authoritative documentary accounts on lawand policy bearing upon the rural social control system (Yanli 1994: 229^234;Li & You 1994: 111^118).

This cursory review of the literature shows that there is currently no com-prehensive study of rural community policing in the PRC. This paper is a ¢rstattempt to ¢ll the literature gap.

Philosophy of Community Policing in Modern China (PRC)

In de¢ning the police-community role in ¢ghting crime and keeping order,PRC has taken the approach that

our public security work . . . is not to have matters monopolized by theprofessional state agencies. It is to be handled by the mass. . . The massline principle . . . is to transform public security work to be the work ofthe whole people. . . (Luo 1994: 57)

We now turn to this most interesting community policing philosophy.

The burden of the ubiquitous past

Historically, social control in China was decentralized and organized aroundnatural communal and intimate groups, e.g. family and clan (Hsiao 1960:261^371; Troyer 1989: 16^24; Dutton 1992), with governmental endorsementand support (Wong 1998b). Local social control was institutionalized. The em-peror rules the state by and through his o⁄cials who in turn governed thepeople by and through the family heads and community leaders (Wen 1971;Chang 1955). Such decentralized, grass root, social control practice was in-formed by Confucian teachings:

Wishing to govern well in their states, they would ¢rst regulate their fa-milies. Wishing to regulate their families, they would ¢rst cultivate their


persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they would ¢rst rectify theirminds. Wishing to rectify their minds, they would ¢rst seek sincerity intheir knowledge. Wishing for sincerity in these thoughts, they would ¢rstextend their knowledge. (Bary et al. 1960: 115.)

Thus, historically and traditionally, functional social control in China wassupplied informally and extra-judicially. This resulted from a deliberate statepolicy as building upon existing natural communal structure (Dutton 1992:84^85), long-evolved cultural habits (Williams 1883: 507; Chu 1962), anddeeply-rooted customary practices (Liu 1959: 56). Hence, while in theory thelocal magistrates were supposed to be in total control of all matters large andsmall in rural China, in practice broad police powers were conceded to thelocal community to be exercised by the family (Liu 1959: Wittfogel 1957: 50).

PRC crime control policy and practice are very much in£uenced by histor-ical Chinese (Confucian) thoughts. More particularly, Chinese traditionalthoughts on social regulation and crime control were informed by the follow-ing premises:

(1) Crime control is a local, indigenous and, above all, family a¡air (Baryet al. 1960: 115; Chu 1962; Wu 1995: 437^510; cf.Wilson & Hernstein 1985:213^244).

(2) Crime control starts with prevention. Prevention addresses earlysymptoms and manifestations of personal problems. (Feng 1994: 67^76;cf. Wilson & Kelling 1982: 29^38). Collaterally, successful crime controladdresses the root causes, and not the outward symptoms, of crime, e.g.the moral degeneration of the individual, the cultural pollution of thepeople, and criminogenic social conditions of the community (Baryet al. 1960: 115).

(3) To be e¡ective, crime prevention must be a multi-faceted,comprehensive, and integrated enterprise, involving the individual,family, clan, neighbor, community, and the state (Bary et al. 1960: 115;cf. Peak & Glensor 1996: 88^92).

(4) To be e¡ective, crime control and prevention measures should bevariegated. Confucius observed that the best way to regulate people wasto ‘‘inspire them with justice, correct them with administration, guidethem with rites, keep them straight with honesty, appeal to them withbenevolence, reward them with bene¢ts, and persuade them to follow’’(Lee 1988: 61; cf. Peak & Glensor 1996: 411^414). More simply, crimecontrol can be best achieved through moral education as supplementedby fast, severe, and speedy punishment (Liu & Yang 1984: 56^64).

Consistent with the above Confucian ideas and ideals, crime preventionand social control in traditional China was realized through indigenousgroupsöstarting with the family which provided the education and disciplinefor character building, the neighbors which provided the supervision and

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sanction against deviance, and the community which set the moral tone andcustomary norms to guide conducts. Finally, the state acted as the social con-trol agency of a last resort in providing legal punishment against crimes, andeconomic maintenance and social welfare to anticipate civil disorders.

The Chinese have taken a broad notion of control (Wittfogel 1957). Controlexisted at macro, intermediate, and micro levels (Gibbs 1982: 9^11) that in-cluded the internalization of norms (by the individual), socialization and disci-plinary regime (by the family), setting up custom and accountability system (inthe community), removal of criminogenic conditions (by the administration)and de¢ning the moral and social boundary (by the state). (See Table 1 below.)

The in£uence of an all-consuming present

The philosophy of PRC policing, conceptually and operationally, is deter-mined by Chinese Communist Party’s political ideology. The PRC leadershipfrom Mao to Deng to Jiang advocated that the people or ‘mass’ (qunzhong) are

Table 1. Traditional social control philosophy/ideal compared: East (China) v. West(U.S.A.)

East West

Justi¢cations ofcontrol

Reformation (of o¡ender)Restoration (of social relation-ship)Reintegration (for communalharmony)

Retribution (to victim/society)Deterrence (to individual/society)Rehabilitation (of individual)

Subject of control Personal characteröinternalthought

Social conductöexternal beha-vior

Basis of control Moral wrong Legal wrongMethod of control Educationöto reform Punishmentöto deterStrategy of control Root of the problem

PreventiveöproactiveManifestation of the problemRemedialöreactive

Site of control Collective IndividualSources of control Multiple layersöindividualö

family-neighbor-clan-state;Multiple focusöpsychologicalöphysicalösocial öeconomicalölegalöpoliticalöcultural

Unitary systemöjudicialölegal

Nature of control Informalösocial FormalölegalTime of control Proactive ReactiveAssumption ofthe controlled

A¡ectiveösocial Rationalöautonomous


the master of their own destiny (Yanli 1994: 18^19). In this regard Dong Biwustated emphatically:

The power of the border government came from the mass (qunzhong) . . .The government has to listen to the mass, adopt the mass viewpoints, un-derstand the mass’ life, protect the mass’ interest. And that is not enough.It must see to it that the mass has courage to criticize the government,supervise its work, and replace unsatisfactory workers. . . Only throughthis can the mass feel that the government is a tool in their own handand the government really their own government. (Peng 1991: 104.)

In the early days of PRC, Mao practiced the ‘mass line’ doctrine by usingindividual voluntarism and mass mobilization in conducting the people’s busi-ness and to move the country ahead (Zhang & Han 1987: 99, 75^76). Massstruggle and self-criticism, not legal norms and judicial process, were used inordering society (Brady 1982).

In practice, following the ‘mass line’ meant that the Party should work andlive amongst the people in order to understand their problems. They shouldlisten carefully to the people in order to formulate solutions addressing theirconcerns. Ultimately, the people’s own ‘‘ideas are preserved . . . and carriedthrough’’ (Brady 1982: 69). ‘‘In all the practical work of our Party, all correctleadership is necessarily from the masses to the masses’’ (Mao 1967: 226^227).More recently, under the leadership of Peng Zhen and later Qiao Qi, ‘powerto the people’ is realized through more structured means, i.e. constituitionali-zation of the political process and legalization of democratic rights.

When the idea of ‘mass line’ was applied to justice administration, ‘popularjustice’, ‘informal justice’ and ‘societal justice’ was preferred over formal,jural, and legal ones. Informal justice models involve the mass in the settlingof disputes, e.g. through mediation. Popular justice engages the mass in thedispensation of justice, e.g. by public denunciation (Leng & Chiu 1985: 11).For example in the earlier years of the PRC (1950^1951) the mass was allowedto dispense with revolutionary justice during the land reform, three-anti (san-fan), ¢ve-anti (wu-fan) movements (Beijing Review 1979: 25). In the later yearsand in judicial work, court trial proceedings were integrated with mass de-bates, e¡ectively bringing the courts to the people (Cohen 1968: 11). Masstrials were held in public not to assure a fair trial but to educate the people,raise their consciousness, and empower them.

In terms of policing, ‘mass line’ formed the basis of ‘people’s policing’whereby the people were themselves responsible for policing. In the contextof ¢ghting against political crimes (and later all social crimes), the people’sparticipation was deemed indispensable to win the ‘people’s war’ (Sun 1997:1^4). Thus in the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, the police were sup-posed to understand the people, trust the people, mobilize the people, andrely on the people (Luo 1994: 82). The police played a supplemental, notdominant; and facilitating, not instigating, role. In all, the people were

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considered the lifeblood and backbone of the police. The people and publicsecurity could be said to be ‘co-producer’ (Rosenbaum et al. 1991: 96^130) ofrevolutionary order and justice, with the people being the principal partner(Luo 1994: 93).

Practically and operationally, people’s policing meant that the police mustsee things from the people’s perspective, seek their support, and be amenableto their supervision (Luo 1994: 189). If the police were detached and isolatedfrom (tuoli) the people, they would not be e¡ective in ¢nding out localproblems and addressing domestic concerns. (Luo 1994: 213; Jiang 1996: 9).Hence, one of the more serious ‘mistakes’ that can be committed by the policeis having an erroneous work style, i.e. being alienated from the mass throughsubjective idealism, bureaucractism, and commandism (Luo 1994: 179, 189).

There are many reasons why the people must be involved and engaged in¢ghting the ‘people’s war’ against crime.

First, the people have the right to participate in their own governance. Thisis akin to the idea and ideal of localism in U.S.A. (Bri¡ault 1990a: 1^115, 1990b:346^456) wherein all the powers of the central government come from thepeople. The spirit and essence of localism is best captured by the U.S. SupremeCourt opinion in Avery v. Midland County: ‘‘Legislators enact many laws but donot attempt to reach those countless matters of local concerns necessarily leftwholly or partly to those who govern at the local level.’’ (390 US 474, 481 1961).

Second, the people have the responsibility as a citizen to ¢ght crime. In thePRC, people’s rights and responsibilities are complementary. Article 33 of thePRC Constitution (1982) provides that ‘‘Citizens enjoy rights guaranteed bythe Constitution and law but they must also ful¢ll their constitutional andlegal responsibility’’. This is akin to the notion of ‘communitarianism’ inU.S.A. that ‘‘says the whole community needs to take responsibility for itself.People need to actively participate, not just give their opinions . . . but insteadgive time, energy, and money’’ (Gurwit 1933: 33^39).

Third, the people are in the best position to see that ‘people’s justice’ isdone, including making decisions on who to police, what to police and howto police. Mao supplied the rationale to ‘people’s policing’ in his Report onan Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Human.

The peasants are clear sighted. Who is bad and who is not quite vicious,who deserves severe punishment and who deserves to be let o¡ lightlyöthe peasants keep clear accounts and very seldom has the punishment ex-ceeded the crime. (Mao 1967: 28.)

This is akin to the idea in U.S.A. that the community notion of order andjustice prevails over the rule of law (Wilson 1968: 287).

Fourth, the people are deemed to be more motivated thus more vigilant,as an oppressed class, to detect the counter-revolutionaries (Luo 1994: 57).This is akin to the idea that citizens of a state, as with employees of anorganization, naturally seek responsibility if they are allowed to ‘own’ a


problem.‘‘The average human being learns, under proper conditions, not onlyto accept but to seek responsibility’’ (McGregor 1960: 48).

Fifth, the people are in the best position, being more able, e⁄cient, ande¡ective in conducting their own business. Criminals and counter-revolution-aries live in the mass. They cannot long survive within the mass without beingexposed by them (Luo 1994: 292). This is akin to the notion in the U.S. thatthe public is the best source of intelligence for the police (Sparrow 1993:4).

Sixth, it is unrealistic to expect the police to provide the optimal level ofsecurity without self-help from the people. The police are not omnipresentnor are they omnipotent. This is especially the case in the sparsely populatedarea: e.g. border and rural areas (Luo 1994: 292). It is most unlikely that thepolice could be informed of all the illegal activities unless being informed bythe people (Luo 1994: 347^352).

Put into practice, ‘people’s policing’ in PRC requires that the police mustwork closely and intimately with the mass (Luo 1994: 315). This means (Luo1994: 309^311):

(1) police and the people are not separable;(2) police should work with the best interest of the people in mind;(3) police should involve the people in preventing, detecting, and controlling

criminal activities;(4) police should educate the people on the state’s crime control policy;(5) police should engage the people in the execution of state law and policy;(6) police should welcome the people in supervising their actions; and,(7) police should avoid being isolated from the mass.

However, the people are sometimes wrongheaded, ignorant, apathetic, andbadly organized (Hsiao 1960: 264). The police as political leaders must mobi-lize the people, raise their political consciousness, and try to organize them(Luo 1994: 72.)

Law of Community Policing in the PRC

Article 2 of the PRC Constitution of 1982 provides that: ‘‘All powers of thePRC belong to the people. . . The people in accordance with the law, throughvarious methods and forms, manage state a¡airs . . . social a¡airs.’’ Speci¢-cally, Article 111 provides that the village communities should be self-governing:

The residents committees and villagers committees . . . are mass organiza-tion of self-management at the grass-root level. . . The residents and villa-gers committees establish sub-committees for people’s mediation, publicsecurity, public health, and other matters in order to manage public

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a¡airs in their area, mediate civil disputes, help maintain public order,and convey residents opinions and demands to the people’s government.

The Organic Law of PRC Villagers Committee (Provisional) empowers the ruralvillage residents to govern themselves and manage their own a¡airs, (Article1) (Zhongguo . . . 1990: 2167^2169). ‘‘Villagers committee is the villagers’’ self-regulating, self-educating, self-servicing local mass self-governing organiza-tion’. (Article 2). The functions of the villagers committee include ‘‘resolvingcivil disputes, assisting in maintaining social order, re£ecting villagers opi-nions, and making demands and suggestions’’ (Article 2).

On 27 June 1952, the Government Council promulgated the Provisional Actof the PRC for the Organization of Security Defense Committee (SDC Act) (Zhong-guo . . . 1993: 1401^1404). The SDC Act provided for the establishment of theSecurity Defense Committee (SDC) in local communities to secure law andorder. As conceived, SDC was functional ‘‘in preventing treason, espionage,theft, and arson, in liquidating counter-revolutionary activities, and in defend-ing state and public security’’ (Art. 1).

Since 1978 and with the opening of China, the role and functions of theSDC were rede¢ned. The SDC was to be mainly concerned with providingfor public order through crime prevention, e.g. community crime watch andmutual surveillance, and order maintenance such as mediation of disputesand supervision over o¡enders (Zhongguo . . . 1993: 1401). More recently, theSDC has shifted all its attention and resources to ¢ghting crime. In so doing,it has all but given up its political mission to attack political enemies at thebehest of the state (Zhongguo . . . 1993: 1401).

The Practice of Community Policing

How community (people) policing functions

The SDCs are delegated with three policing functions.First, one of the most important functions of the SDC is to resolve incipient

con£icts and disputes through mediation (tiaojie), before they becomeunmanageable. Con£icts and disputes are resolved by the SDC-MediationCommittee with reference to law, regulations, custom, and village agreement(xian yue). The village people prefer tiaojie because it is informal, inexpensive,and e¡ective. The village people also do not like going to the o⁄cialsöbu-reaucrats and outsidersöto resolve local and personal problems. Lastly, a suc-cessful mediation resolves dispute without disrupting existing relationship.

Second, the SDC is responsible for organizing the local security defense.For example, in May of 1995 the local security system of Kedong county,Shanxing province, Jianshe village consisted of four specialized, full-time, se-curity defense teams directed by a captain who was also a SDC member. Thesecurity defense personnel were paid 2000 dollars a year and funded by a


household tax of 1.8 dollar per month per household. Each security defenseagents has to sign an undertaking, secured by a 4000-dollar guarantee orproperty pledge, to carry out his responsibility. He has to repay the villagefor any property and animal lose during his shift, i.e. 80% of the value ofany stolen vehicle and 50% of the value of any stolen grains. The securityresponsibility system placed the crime prevention responsibility squarely inthe hands of the local SDC and its security team agents. This proved to bee¡ective in preventing crimes and reducing loses.

Third, the SDC is responsible for the proper maintenance of householdsupervision (hukou guanli) within a village. A responsible person in each vil-lage is designated as an o⁄cial household agent in charge of household regis-tration matters. The person works closely with the household police o⁄cer atthe police post. The SDC keeps four kinds of household records. (1) A book iskept on the distribution of all persons without a registered household and anyregistered households without some or all of its registered residents; (2) achart is kept containing the name, residence, and household address of allthe residents in the area; (3) a photo album is kept of all the youth and ablebodies in the area between 16 and 50 years of age; (4) a map is kept showingthe distribution of households, including the location of SDC directors andresidents of ‘focus group people’ (zhongdian renkou). The household registrationsystem allows the SDC and police to keep track of the coming and going ofsuspected criminals from without and disruptive activities of trouble-makersfrom within (Dutton 1992).

Community policing in action: a case study

How community policing works in practice can be best illustrated by a ‘typi-cal’ case supplied by the Minister of Public Security for propaganda and edu-cational purposes (Wen & Chen 1997: 25^27).

In 1993, a 28-year-old public security o⁄cer, Mr Sui, was transferred toLun Yang Zhen, a rural town, with a 50 000 population, as the head of thelocal paichusuo (police post). The LunTan Zhen was a newly-established ruraltown 46 km from the nearest city. It had no paved road. The place su¡eredfrom a lack of established policing authority since it came within nobody’sjurisdiction. It has had a serious public order problem for years.

When o⁄cer Sui arrived there was no o⁄ce, car, or communication equip-ment. Although he had an establishment of three police o⁄cers, o⁄cer Suiwas for all intent and purposes the only public security o⁄cer in town. The¢rst thing he did was to recruit and form a ten-person joint-security defenseteam (zhian lianfang dui). He also set up a village protection team in each vil-lage. He spent another month organizing SDCs in the 27 administrative vil-lages under his charge. He built 277 guard posts and watch houses for hisSDCs. He divided the policing area into ¢ve police districts and four police

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beats. He assigned policing and order maintenance duties to each of his ad-ministrative village Party secretaries, SDC chiefs, and SDC members. He es-tablished a security ‘responsibility system’ and started night patrols in a¡ectedareas.

Upon arrival, o⁄cer Sui visited each of the villagers personally. With hissel£ess devotion to duty and compassionate care for the people, he was ableto earn the residents’ trust and respect. He established his authority by stead-fastly standing ¢rm against any political in£uence from above and economiccorruption from below. He demonstrated leadership by personally supervisingthe SDCs in maintaining law and order. He strictly checked upon the house-hold registers (moupai) to sort out criminal elements and relentlessly con-ducted criminal investigation to reduce crime. He patiently mediated inminor disputes to prevent minor con£icts from escalating into major crimes.

The case study makes clear that in order to be e¡ective, the police mustwork hand in grove with the people, starting with understanding their pro-blems and earning their trust. In fact, the imagery often used to describe therelationship between the police and the people is that of ¢sh (police) andwater (people)öthe ¢sh cannot long survive out of the water, as the policecannot e¡ectively function without the people.

Some Issues and Problems with Community Policing

Changed in roles, functions, and methods of the SDC

As originally conceived under the Provisional Act of the PRC for the Organi-zation of Security Defense Committee in 1954 the SDC was a political institu-tion. It was established as an indigenous mass organization to mobilize thepeople to eliminate all class enemiesötraitors, spies, counter-revolutionaries,criminals and social mis¢tsöto build a Communist revolutionary order, i.e. aproletarian dictatorship. After 1978 the SDC was re-oriented to deal with so-cial security and public order issues and concerns. On 24 January 1980 theMinistry of Public Security promulgated the Notice Regarding Continue toImplement the Provisional Organic Defense Security Committee Regulations(SDC Notice) (Zhongguo Gongan Bake Quanshu Editorial Committee 1989:226). The SDC Notice provided for the continued application of the 1954 SDCAct as it changed the primary role of the SDC from one of securing revolu-tionary justice to that of providing for law and order. Instead of seeking toraise the people’s class-consciousness through mass campaigns, it now at-tempts to educate the people to the spirit and letters of the law. Instead ofmobilizing the people to struggle against the class enemies, it now organizesthe people to provide for mutual security defense against the criminals. In all,in the 1990s, the SDC ¢ghts crimes and maintains order with the rule oflaw and by means of established legal process. It no longer imposes political


domination over class enemies with the use of mass mobilization and publicstruggle.

Rule of law v. norms of community

The villagers committee, and by extension the SDC, is intended to be a self-governingöself-managing, self-educating, self-servicing, self-orderingögrass-roots institution (Li & You 1994: 4). It operates on the principle of democraticself-governance (minzhu zizhi) (Li & You 1994: 113). However, in theory as wellas in practice, it is not supposed to be totally independent (duli) and autono-mous (ziju), i.e. functioning freely without any limitations imposed by theParty, state, or law (Li & You 1994: 114). In reality, the SDC’s role and func-tions, duty and responsibility, power and authority are very much a¡ected byCommunist party policy, state law, administrative directives. There are struc-tural tensions and inherent con£icts between having SDC functioning as anautonomous self-governing unit and having it subjected to institutional con-trol (legal, political, administrative) of one form or another. The PRC politi-cal authority is keenly aware of such tensions (Li & You 1994: 4).

In all, three kinds of structural tensions are observed (Li & You 1994: 129).First, Communist Party policy v. community autonomy. Political imposition isjusti¢ed because a community’s self-rule is allowed solely to achieve Commu-nist ideals and programs and a community’s self-rule can only be properlyexercised by and through the leadership of the Communist Party (Li & You1994: 113). Second, government central administrative direction v. local demo-cratic rule. Administrative imposition is justi¢ed because a community’s self-rule must be structured to implement state policy and not allowed to be incon£ict with state policy and objectives (Li & You 1994: 113). Third state lawsand regulations v. communal customs and norms (Gao 1994: 11^16). Legal im-position is justi¢ed because a community’s right to self-rule must be exercisedwithin the con¢ne of the Constitution as empowered by law. Article 2 of PRCConstitution provided that: ‘All powers of the PRC belong to the people . . .The people in accordance with the law, through various methods and forms,manage state . . . social a¡airs’’.

In summary, a community’s self-rule is to be exercised within a well-de-¢ned ‘top-down’ frameworköpoliticized, legalized, rationalized, and bureau-cratized; to be justi¢ed on grounds of legitimacy, utility, and shared interests(Li & You 1994: 129).

External impositions on a community, however legitimate and justi¢ed, areoften resented as gratuitous interference, if not even unwarranted encroach-ments on local autonomy. Such is the case with legal penetration of the localcommunity (Moser 1982: 174^175). Increasingly the state has legitimized itspenetration into local a¡airs by and through the law. This is achieved twoways: (1) by educating the people to the letter, spirit, the rule of the law (Li& You 1994: 114); and (2) by insisting that the local conduct norms and rules

K. C.Wong 139

should incorporate state substantive law and process (Li & You 1994: 132).This raises squarely the issue of ‘rule of law’ v. ‘norms of community’ (Mas-trofski & Green 1993: 80^102; Bayley 1988). The con£ict arose when a commu-nity seeks to protect community interests and collective welfare at the expenseof legally protected individual rights or due process (Wilson 1968), e.g. com-munity sense of justice must give way to legal justice.

On a still larger compass, the state law v. community norms debateraises the more general question of whether monolithic legal values, bothsubstantive and procedure, can adequately address diverse local conditions,values and concerns? (Wright 1980: 19^31). More speci¢cally, communitynorms are by nature contingent (e.g. on social status, on past conduct, onbalancing utilities), not absolute (based on natural rights and legal entitle-ments) nor rational (Feeley 1997: 119^133) as provided for by law.

Ideological community policing v. instrumental community policing

Leadership philosophy and style has a de¢ning in£uence on Chinese polity.Mao is an ideologue. Deng is a pragmatist. Jiang is a technocrat.

Community policing under Mao is ideological (Wen & Chen 1997: 25^27)subsumed under the broad rubric of the government of, by, and for the people(Mao 1971: 25^27). The government and the people are not separable enti-tiesöthey are one and the same. In the end, both the people and the policeserve the same masteröCommunist ideology. The border area Justice LeiJingtian observed:

Making justice administration work the mass’s own work, the judicial or-gans the mass’s organs, be at one with the mass, listen carefully to theirsuggestions, respect the ¢ne habits of the mass, fairly and responsibly re-solve the mass’s problems, organize mass trial without concern with form-alities, and reduce litigation of the mass. (Yang & Fang 1987: 72.)

The implications of this mass line doctrine, as applied to policing, isclearöthe people and not the police is in control (‘‘Making justice adminis-tration work the mass’s own work. . .’’). Nothing is to come in between thepeople and their own aspirations, wants, and realization of self (‘‘organizemass trial without concern with formalities’’). In this regard the police arean extension of the people; of which they are an inseparable part. The policeadopt the interest, viewpoint, and method of the people (‘‘listen carefully totheir suggestions, respect the ¢ne habits of the mass, fairly and responsiblyresolve the mass’s problems’’. Serving the people is an end, not a mean.

Deng spearheaded ‘pragmatic policing’. Jiang followed with ‘scienti¢c poli-cing’ (Wong 1998a).Whether it is pragmatic policing or scienti¢c policing, theresult is the same. Policing in China is getting to be more ‘instrumental’ than‘ideological’ (Feng 1994: 81). In this regard, community policing is instru-mental in two senses (Sheng 1997: 29^31). First, local SDCöcommunity


policingöis increasingly being used as a policy arm of the Communist Partyand central government working through the local police apparatus. Thisconforms to traditional Communist political wisdom. Second, the police areincreasingly using the people to achieve their organizational missions and op-erational objectives. This is driven by police modernization needs. The policeorganization is getting increasingly more bureaucratized (e.g. division of la-bor, centralized), professionalized (e.g. scienti¢c crime detection, MBO), andlegalized (i.e. rule by law) (Wong 1994).

Dysfunctional community policing

The economic reform in China is having a devastating impact on communitypolicing. The impact is felt in three ways. First, economic reform led to funda-mental social-structural dislocations resulting in a more criminogenic socialenvironment (Zhang 1997: 4^12). The economic reform has e¡ective trans-formed the basic characteristics of the Chinese society, especially with therural communities, from a closed, static, stable, collective, uniform, simple,and tightly controlled society to an open, dynamic, individualistic, diverse,and complex one (Zhang 1997: 4^5). At an individual and psychological level,the economic reform and attendant social transformation created adjustmentproblems for the individuals (Wong 1996a). The economic reform rediscoveredin the collective personality an individual identity, characterized by a self-re-garding egotistical tendency and a norm-defying pro¢t orientation. The his-torically suppressed egotistical self and politically denied pro¢t motive, onceliberated by Deng to ¢ght the vanguard battle against the planned economyand collective welfare state, knows no bound. The pre-occupation with an allembracing self, i.e. egotism, as fueled by an insatiable obsession with pro¢t,i.e. hedonism, strong enough to be the engine of economic reform, is also notamendable to established communal, informal, and static social control of thetraditional kinds.

Second, economic reform weakened the existing community policing(social control) structure and method (Dai 1997: 46^50). Community controlin the past was built upon a relatively closed, static, stable, uniform and sim-ple society. In such a society (community) social controls are tightly copu-lated and very restrictive. Morality is internalized. Personal character isrelatively ¢xed and immutable. Social, administrative, and political controlswere designed to regulate every aspect of a person’s value, thought, and ac-tion. This kind of social control is fast breaking down. The economic reformmade the once closed and stable community, an open and dynamic one. Inthe process, the static control system of the past is found to be dysfunctionalin containing dynamic deviance. This is most evident in the case of the house-hold registration system. In the past, the key to crime control was throughhousehold management (hukkao guanli) which facilitated mutual surveillance

K. C.Wong 141

and government control. E¡ective crime prevention and detection howeverdepended on timely and accurate registration of all households. The registra-tion system is fast breaking down. For example, there was a phenomenoncalled ‘koudai hukou’ (pocket household). The ‘koudai hukou’ was an indivi-dual who travels around with a household account he can readily used, i.e. ahousehold readily available ‘in his own pocket’ (thus the idea of a pocket) ashe moved around, e.g. married female using the male household withoutactually registering. Households were not registered report for a numberof reasons. The individuals might want to avoid state-imposed duties, fromgovernment birth control limit to village duties and levies. Local governmentsand administrative units, e.g. administrative villages, might not registerhousehold to show that they have achieved planned economic targets man-dated by their political boss, e.g. reaching and exceeding ‘middle class’ livingstandards without unemployment.

Third, economic reform attenuated, if not completely destroyed, the closeand intimate relationship between the mass and the police. As the police be-come more and more professionalized and specialized, they become more andmore isolated and alienated from the people they serve. For example, the po-lice are less and less interested in establishing a rapport with the people andmore and more interested in catching criminals and ¢ghting crimes. In pursu-ing aggressive crime ¢ghting strategies, e.g. indiscriminate ¢ght crime ( yanda)champaigns and stop and search operations, the police alienated local resi-dents they are supposed to serve, depend on, and accountable to. Increasingly,the police o⁄cers are seen as imposing on and dictating to the people ratherthan engaging and involving them. In adopting scienti¢c crime ¢ghting meth-ods, the investigation and detection of crime is made the responsibility of spe-cialized units. This alienated the crime victims and ignored the localcommunity sentiments and input. The specialization and bureaucratizationof investigation have the net e¡ect of reducing the participation and involve-ment of the community and people; reducing the e⁄ciency and e¡ectivenessof the crime prevention and detection e¡ort in turn. The obsession of the po-lice with ¢ghting crimes, further undermined the police-community coopera-tion in developing a comprehensive and integrated crime control strategy(Zhang 1997: 13).

Conclusion

This research of a ¢rst impression investigated the philosophy, law, and prac-tice of rural community policing in the PRC in order to provide a basis forcomparative discourse in world-wide crime prevention trend and methods. Itdiscovers that even though community policing has been recently invented asan innovative crime control technology in urban centers in theWest, commu-nity social control was practiced as a matter of course in pre-industrializedsocieties as with the case of imperial China.


The law and practice of community policing in rural China exhibitedmuch continuity with the past. This research informs that community poli-cing, as presently practiced in rural China, has a deep historical root, vener-able philosophical tradition, and vibrant political-ideological base. In China,social control has always been local, social, and informalöthe state, law, andadministration were rarely involved, and only used as a last resort. Confuciusthought it wise to allow the family and clan to provide education and disci-pline for the citizens. The imperial administrators considered it expedient toallow the local communities to police their own members. The Communistideology called for the ‘mass’ to participate in self-government as a matter of¢rst principle.

However, it is observed that traditional community oriented and familybased social control in China is fast becoming an endanger species; increas-ingly being replaced by ‘modern’,‘scienti¢c’, and ‘professional’ policing directedfrom afar and imposed from without. The economic reform has gradually de-stroyed the fabric of the traditional rural community and its attending socialcontrol system; replacing it with a bureaucratized and impersonal police forcethat tried, ever so unsuccessfully, to hold on to a historical tradition and poli-tical ideology of indigenous communal rule with the re-orientation of theSDCs and the introduction of community policing.

Community policing is here to stay. People’s policing is gone forever!

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