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China`s Unhappy Police - Department of Political Science
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China’s Unhappy Police
Suzanne E. Scoggins
210 Barrows Hall
Department of Political Science
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
Kevin J. O’Brien
210 Barrows Hall
Department of Political Science
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
(forthcoming, Asian Survey)
February 10, 2015
China’s Unhappy Police
China’s street-level police are frustrated. Facing heavy caseloads, administrative drudgery, and
low pay, front-line officers find it difficult to focus on tasks they find worthwhile. Discontent
often sets in when young recruits’ dreams of being respected and powerful run up against the
realities of life on patrol and does not disappear after they advance to station leadership
positions, where they cannot easily make changes that improve operations or ease the
pressures of the job. Even older officers are dissatisfied with recent procedural reforms and
their inability to command the respect they once did. These grievances lead to low morale and
much more. In interviews conducted in Hunan, Hebei, Shaanxi, and Beijing from ,
local police report that discontent encourages shirking, corruption, and waste. Although the
Ministry of Public Security has acknowledged police dissatisfaction and the low productivity it
causes, reforms so far do little more than treat symptoms and, in some cases, make the
situation worse. Interviewing disgruntled cops reveals a life filled with uncertainty, hardship
and feelings of powerlessness. It also explains why officers are often seen as lazy and corrupt,
and gives us cause to rethink the image of police as effective arms of a highly securitized state.
Keywords: Police Frustration, Street-Level Bureaucrats, Ministry of Public Security, Police
Reform, Stability Maintenance, China
China’s Unhappy Police
Over the last thirty years, China’s police force has expanded and professionalized.
Street-level officers are now better paid, receive more training, and have access to higher tech
equipment. But these improvements have failed to translate into much satisfaction on the
ground. From patrol cops to detectives, many front-line police feel frustrated. Officers in cities
and rural areas alike say they are saddled with heavy workloads and reporting requirements
that make it difficult to focus on tasks they find worthwhile. Their complaints come at a time
when the Ministry of Public Security is seeking to boost morale by soliciting input from groundlevel cops and developing better protocols for handling crime and protest. With an internal
security budget exceeding that devoted to national defense,1 the Ministry certainly has the
resources to address job dissatisfaction. Why then are front-line officers so unhappy?
Police frustration is not new. Ever since the constabulary was turned into a modern
police force in the early 1900s, officers have complained about long hours, exhausting patrol
work, and insufficient manpower. In the Republican era, police turnover was high, as
“Report on China’s Central, Local Budgets,” China Daily, March 19, 2013,
&.cn/china/2013npc//content_.htm&. On
where that money goes and the burden it places on local governments in poorer areas, see Xie
Yue, “Rising Central Spending on Public Security and the Dilemma Facing Grassroots Officials in
China,” in Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 2 (2013), pp. 79-109.
overworked and underpaid officers labored to bring order to increasingly lawless cities. 2 Police
discontent continued after 1949, when an undermanned force was instructed to root out
counter-revolutionaries on top of apprehending run-of-the-mill criminals.3 The reform era has
led to less emphasis on political crimes and more on conventional law enforcement, 4 but frontline police continue to grumble about low salaries, poor working conditions, and being situated
on the bottom rung of one of the smaller (per capita) forces in the world.5 Moreover, police
Frederic Wakeman, Jr., Policing Shanghai:
(Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1995), pp. 165-68.
Michael Dutton, Policing Chinese Politics: A History (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995),
pp. 144-150. The Cultural Revolution must be distinguished from the rest of the Maoist period.
From 1966 to 1969, political turmoil unseated most of the Public Security Bureau’s leadership,
and police presence on the ground crumbled as officers learned that little could protect them
from the Red Guards. See pp. 217-232 for a discussion of military control over the police during
the Cultural Revolution.
Susan Trevaskes, Policing Serious Crime in China: From Strike Hard to Kill Fewer (London:
Routledge, 2010), p. 6; Dutton, Policing Chinese Politics, pp. 251-262.
China no longer publicizes the size of its police force, but media estimates place the number at
around two million. See Kathrin Hille, “China’s Police Ill-Equipped to Combat Unrest,” Financial
Times, February 5, 2012, &/cms/s/0/526b-11e1-feabdc0.html&. Moreover, the force is unevenly distributed and is especially sparse in the
countryside. See Xie, “Rising Central Spending on Public Security.”
work of late has not been made easier by rising crime rates 6 and a citizenry wary of officers
known to beat suspects,7 take bribes,8 and engage in illegal activities.9 Keeping order in China
remains a thankless task, making it not so different from day-to-day policing elsewhere.10
Borge Bakken, Crime, Punishment, and Policing in China (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield,
2005), pp. 64-99.
It is not uncommon for the press to publish stories on police brutality, particularly when the
beatings result in death. For a well-known 2008 case of a young suspect’s fatal beating in
Harbin, see “Haerbin 6 Jingcha Shexian Dasi Nan Qingnian An” [6 Harbin police allegedly kill
young man] Netease, October 11, 2008,
&/special/0001135D/jingchadaren.html&.
Although most bribes go unreported, accounts sometimes surface in the press. See “Jingcha
Shou 9 Wan Huilu Fangzou Xingan Yifan: Cheng Yin Fal& Yishi Bugou” [Police accept 90,000 yuan
in bribes to release suspects, said the suspects’ knowledge of law is lacking] Nanfang Dushi Bao
[Southern Metropolis Daily], September 7, 2013,
&/6087346.shtml&.
Reports of police acting above the law are sometimes covered by the media and range from
hit and run incidents to helping offspring gain university admission through improper means.
See “Liaoning Fumeng Xian Jingche Shuang Ren Taoyi An Siji Bei Yifa Juliu” [Police car driver in
Liaoning Fumeng County hit and run case detained according to the law] Xinhua, April 17, 2013,
&/legal//c_.htm& and “Hunan Longhui
Gonganju Zhengwei N&er Maomingdingti Shang Daxue” [Hunan Longhui police commissioner’s
The structure of the police bureaucracy does front-line officers few favors. Policing is
governed from the top down, and many officials in Beijing and provincial capitals are far
removed from the realities of ground-level life. The National People’s Congress establishes the
policy agenda and the Ministry of Public Security formulates rules and programs that are
transmitted to provincial public security bureaus that oversee municipal or county departments
and stations. Both central and provincial authorities offer training programs and conduct
daughter uses an imposter to attend university] Zhongguo Qingnian Bao [China Youth Daily],
May 5, 2009, &/09/HMPUF.html&.
On police frustration elsewhere, see William Ker Muir, Jr., Police: Streetcorner Politicians
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977); Setsuo Miyazawa, Policing in Japan: A Study on
Making Crime (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992); Lauren McCarthy, “LocalLevel Law Enforcement: Muscovites and their Uchastkovyi,” in Post-Soviet Affairs 30:2-3 (2014),
pp. 195-222; and Wojciech Cebulak, “Fairness, Job Frustration, and Moral Dilemmas in Policing
that Impact Police Effectiveness,” in Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology 16:2 (2001), pp.
48-57. Police in other areas, particularly Latin America, may have it worse than their Chinese
counterparts. See Yanilda Gonzalez, “State Building on the Ground: Police Reform and
Participatory Security in Latin America” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2014) for a description
of ill-compensated police in Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia who routinely face violent attacks
from citizens and enjoy little support from their superiors. In Argentina, officers’ rights are
often violated to the point that some police find themselves serving jail time for minor
violations such as being late to work.
investigations into local compliance, but resources are always stretched thin owing to
manpower shortages and the Ministry’s responsibility for a range of tasks, including border
patrol, drug enforcement, and prison administration. This leaves front-line police with limited
support and few avenues to provide feedback when policies do not fit local conditions or make
life on the ground difficult.
The trials of street-level officers have only worsened in recent years as they face new
demands and reforms that tie their hands. Older cops complain bitterly about procedural
changes that make it harder to conduct investigations and interrogate suspects. Officers of all
ages lament a 1994 rule that forbids them from carrying guns (except under extraordinary
circumstances)11 and often attribute some of their limited authority to being under-armed.
Police are also unhappy about stepped-up reporting requirements. Chinese street cops, like
those in many countries, are frustrated by the number, length, and complexity of the reports
they must file with their superiors and the Ministry. Beset with busywork and pinned to their
desks, officers argue they have insufficient time to attend to more important tasks such as
conducting investigations. Finally, attacks on police have increased both in violence and
frequency, undercutting the belief many hold that they are respected and, when needed,
feared by the public.
Some patrol units were authorized to begin carrying guns in 2014. See “Weaponized,” The
Economist, October 18, 2014, &/news/china/-mostchinese-police-have-long-gone-without-firearms-wake-terrorist-incidents&.
The struggles of frontline police bring us deep into the world of China’s “street-level
bureaucrats.” But unlike the public service workers in Lipsky’s original formulation, 12 or the
cops, teachers, and counselors in Maynard-Moody’s more recent account,13 the men and
women who don police uniforms in China lack both the opportunity and inclination to exercise
the discretion employed by street-level bureaucrats elsewhere. They by and large have few
chances to innovate and their low morale makes it difficult for them to care much about case
resolution or pushing for larger changes that would improve public order. Instead, most
Chinese police strain under time, funding, and staffing constraints and a system that many
believe is stacked against them. The dissatisfaction that results leads to diminished
effectiveness on the ground, apathy, shirking, and worse. Their stories show how coercive
power in one highly hierarchical, authoritarian system can dissipate long before it reaches the
street. Their experiences also reveal fault lines in state-society relations precisely at the point
where lawful authority meets unlawful behavior, perhaps the most basic responsibility of any
government, democratic or otherwise.
Police discontent thus raises questions about street-level bureaucracy in an
authoritarian regime and casts a fresh light on China’s “stability maintenance” [weiwen] and
crime-fighting efforts. Much of the existing literature on reform-era policing focuses on higher-
Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services (New
York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1980).
Steven Williams Maynard-Moody, Cops, Teachers, Counselors: Stories from the Front Lines of
Public Service (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003).
level concerns, such as protest control,14 strike-hard campaigns,15 leadership selection,16 and
structural reform.17 These studies provide insight into domestic security policy and its
consequences but reveal less about the lives of men and women on the ground. Who is
aggrieved and why? How does widespread discontent impact the ability of street-level officers
to do their jobs? Finally, what, if anything, is the Ministry of Public Security doing to reduce
police frustration?
Murray Scot Tanner, “China Rethinks Unrest,” in The Washington Quarterly 27:3 (2004), pp.
137-156; Murray Scot Tanner, “Campaign-Style Policing in China and its Critics,” in Crime,
Punishment, and Policing in China, ed. Borge Bakken (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005),
pp. 171-188; and Xie Yue, “The Political Logic of Weiwen in Contemporary China,” in Issues and
Studies 48:3 (2012), pp. 1-41.
Susan Trevaskes, Policing Serious Crime in China: From Strike Hard to Kill Fewer (London:
Routledge, 2010) and Murray Scot Tanner, “State Coercion and the Balance of Awe: The
‘Stern Blows’ Anti-Crime Campaign,” in The China Journal 44 (2000), pp. 93-125.
Wang Yuhua, “Empowering the Police: How the Chinese Communist Party Manages Its
Coercive Leaders,” in China Quarterly 219 (2014), pp. 625-48.
Kam C. Wong, Police Reform in China (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2011); Fu Hualing, “Zhou
Yongkang and the Recent Police Reform in China,” in Australian and New Zealand Journal of
Criminology 38:2 (2005), pp. 241-253; and Dutton, Policing Chinese Politics, pp. 247-300.
Doing Research on China’s Street-Level Police
We know little about what police officers think and feel because, like many individuals
in China’s security apparatus,18 they are hard to reach. Although the country opened its doors
to social science research over thirty years ago, concerns about secrecy continue to limit access
to people in sensitive lines of work. Even today, many officers refuse to discuss their day-to-day
life, while others have no qualms about explaining the difficulties they face. Scholars have
achieved some successes in penetrating the world of ground-level police, and have taught us
about the psychological stress officers feel,19 their treatment of prostitutes,20 and the tight
On similar difficulties reaching veterans, see Neil J. Diamant and Kevin J. O’Brien, “Veterans’
Political Activism in China,” in Modern China (forthcoming). doi:10..
Wang Xiaohai, “Psychological Empowerment of Frontline Police Officers in Response to Social
Service Role Strain in China,” in Asian Criminology (forthcoming). doi:10.- and Peng Wentao, “Jingcha Zhiye Yali Fenxi Ji Yingdui Cuoshi Jianyi” [The analysis of
pressures on police officers and relevant recommendations], in Gongan Yanjiu [Policing Studies]
4 (2009), pp. 58-60.
Margaret Boittin, “The Whore, the Hostess, and the Honey: Policing, Health, Business and the
Regulation of Prostitution in China” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2015).
relationship between local businesses and the police,21 but research on the lived experience of
street cops remains scarce.
Fortunately, access is improving, especially for those who have ties to the security
world. Using her prior experience teaching English to police officers in Beijing as a calling card,
the first author spent 21 months getting to know a number of street cops and learning about
their work. From September 2010 to January 2013 she used snowball sampling to set up 59
open-ended interviews with 31 officers in Hunan, Hebei, Shaanxi, and Beijing. The age and
experience level of the interviewees ranged from new hires in their mid-20s to recent retirees
in their late 50s. All but six were men. About half were low-ranking patrol officers or entry-level
station workers, while the others held mid-level positions such as detective or patrol leader and
had some supervisory responsibilities. She also interviewed one station chief and one assistant
station chief. Meetings always took place in social settings, often with a mutual contact
present. Second or third interviews, when possible, were typically more informative as officers
warmed to the idea of recounting their experiences and frustrations to a foreign researcher. As
is common with people near the bottom of a hierarchy, a sympathetic ear and the opportunity
Xu Jianhua, “Authoritarian Policing with Chinese Characteristics: A Case Study of Motorcycle
Bans in the Pearl River Delta,” in Crime, Law and Social Change (forthcoming). doi:
10.-013-9495-1.
to explain “how hard it is to be me” often led interviewees to open up and be more
forthcoming as time passed and trust was established.22
Interviews with ground-level cops offer insight into an understudied aspect of Chinese
policing: how it feels to be an officer on the street, knocking on doors, filling out reports, and
sitting in a patrol car for hours on end. Police officers are one of the more visible faces of the
state, but most of what we know about them comes from the citizen side of the state-society
equation. Lacking the perspective of police themselves, we are left with a partial view of
policing that ignores the men and women behind the uniform. Sitting down with street-level
officers to learn what they have to say rounds out the story and gives us entry into the
frustrations they experience and the cross-pressures they encounter.
Who is Dissatisfied? Why?
Front-line policing in China is somewhat different than policing in many industrialized
countries. Unlike typical beat cops who go out on patrol and perform duties like responding to
service calls and making arrests, Chinese police are rooted in the paichusuo [local police
stations] where they depend on neighborhood cooperation and social relationships to prevent
crime and resolve disputes. This method of social control is an integral feature of Chinese
On this interviewing technique, see Kevin J. O’Brien, “Discovery, Research (Re)design, and
Theory Building,” in Doing Fieldwork in China, ed. Maria Heimer and Stig Th&gersen (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2006), pp. 27-41.
policing and has been compared with community policing in the West. 23 Full-fledged patrol
officers did not emerge in China until the 1980s, when crime rates started rising and
government leaders felt the need to increase the visibility of police on the streets. 24
These days, front-line policing encompasses a wide range of activities and officers.
Paichusuos at the county and municipal district levels are the hubs of police activity, and
workers stationed there must answer calls from the public, conduct investigations, maintain the
household registration system, and complete administrative tasks such as filing reports. In a
small county paichusuo, a handful of officers might share some of these tasks, but in larger
cities, there is more job differentiation. Xunjing [patrol officers], jiaojing [traffic police], and
xiejing [auxiliary police] are the police that residents most often encounter on urban streets,
though other officers at a typical station also have some contact with the public. 25
Chen Xiaoming, “Community and Policy Strategies: A Chinese Approach to Crime Control,” in
Policing and Society 12:1 (2002), pp. 1-13.
For detailed descriptions of this shift in social control tactics see Allan Jiao, “Community
Policing and Community Mutuality: A Comparative Analysis of American and Chinese Police
Reforms,” in Police Studies 18:3 and 4 (1995), p. 73 and Fu Hualing, “Patrol Police: A Recent
Development in the People’s Republic of China,” in Police Studies 13 (1990), pp. 111-17.
Xiejing are not officially police, but they nevertheless serve as front-line security officers, as
do chengguan [urban administrative and law enforcement agency officials]. Though both xiejing
and chengguan are important for maintaining social order, in this article we address only the
Many grievances are common to nearly all police. Heavy caseloads, administrative
drudgery, and low pay affect every street-level cop. Resource limitations are the source of
some their biggest problems. One young officer summed up his job by saying: “The work is hard
and the pay is too low. At the paichusuo I sometimes go 36 hours without rest. . . . My girlfriend
wishes I had never become a policeman.”26 Complaints of this sort seldom go away as the years
pass and were echoed by other police. One man nearing retirement pointed out: “We get paid
more as senior officers in a district station, but it’s still less [than people our age in other
professions]. We are also more exhausted [by our work].”27
If some gripes are universal, others reflect disappointing experiences and dashed
expectations that arise at certain stages of an officer’s career. Facing piles of tedious, repetitive
work, young police report that life on the force is not what they anticipated. Fresh recruits in
their early 20s typically start out full of hope, imagining that they are taking up positions as
brave law enforcers who will command prestige, get to wear a sharp uniform, and maybe, if
they are lucky, fire a gun. They tend to be aware of the long hours and dangers of the job, but
few are prepared for the monotony of street-level policing.28 When on patrol, they often spend
hours parked on street corners with little to do. Instead of fighting crime, many also find
discontent of zhengshi [official] front-line police who possess a police number and rank
[jinghao, jingxian] or are under contract to work as patrol officers.
Interview with a district station junior officer, Shaanxi, 2012.
Interview with a district station senior officer, Shaanxi, 2012.
Interview with a district station patrol squad leader, Hebei, 2012.
themselves occupied with matters unrelated to law enforcement. Members of the public often
do not know what falls within their job description, and officers say they must respond to every
phone request, no matter how insignificant. This means that street-level cops may be
summoned to find lost cows in the middle of the night,29 search for missing dogs, or retrieve
forgotten QQ numbers (login information for a popular social network).30 Despite being fix-it
men for a host of community problems, young police complain that they have far less authority
than they expected. “I can tell someone on the street to stop,” explained one officer, “but they
don’t care. They just start arguing with me.” Even their dreams of firing a gun are seldom met.
Although most stations have access to an armory that can be opened when weapons are
needed,31 none of our younger interviewees had ever been sent out armed. Bored,
unappreciated, and with few assignments as stimulating as conducting a raid or responding to a
protest, excitement about the job soon fades as young police adjust to the daily grind of life on
the force.
When officers reach the middle stage of their careers, grievances shift toward a lack of
control at work. Many cops in their 30s or 40s are disenchanted because they expected more
power to go along with growing supervisory duties, and they are frustrated that they cannot
initiate changes that would ease their jobs and make the station function better. One captain of
Interview with a mid-level officer recalling his early days on the force at a county station,
Hunan, 2012.
Interview with a district station junior officer, Shaanxi, 2012.
Interview with a city station detective, Hebei, 2011.
a district patrol squad explained how little influence he had over staffing decisions: “There are
too many men in the station house, and I don’t have enough people to send out on patrol. . . .
It’s not fair, but men in the desk jobs have connections. There’s nothing I can do to change it.”32
Furthermore, he said he needed the ability to decide when his squad could carry firearms, but
that requestin excepting extraordinary circumstances, his men had to
respond to potentially dangerous calls unarmed. Another middle-aged officer who serves as a
supervisor in a district station placed the blame for his powerlessness squarely on his
superiors.33 Because the leaders of his station are all political appointees transferred from other
work units, he felt he could not go to them with suggestions about procedural reforms that
would improve police effectiveness. He explained: “We know what needs to be changed, but
[the leaders] don’t listen. They have no [policing] experience and are afraid to make changes.”
As officers enter their 50s and the final stage of a career, the focus of grievances shifts
once more as they come face-to-face with problems arising from efforts to professionalize
Chinese policing. Accustomed to low pay and a middling position in the station bureaucracy,
some older cops feel demoralized by their declining relevance and find it difficult to keep up
with new practices, such as using computers on patrol. Others, more willing to change, are
irritated by the assumption that they are too old to embrace innovative policing techniques.
They may also experience age discrimination. One older officer complained: “A lot of the
training in the last three to five years is geared toward learning new technologies. It’s only for
Interview with a district station patrol squad leader, Hebei, 2012.
Interview with an internal inspections officer, Hunan, 2012.
the young men. If you’re over 50, they don’t want to train you. We old guys get left behind.” 34
On the street, lack of respect continues to grate, and is heightened by memories of a more
glorious past. Older officers are the ones who most often relate a familiar piece of police lore:
“In the 1980s, one officer could catch ten bad guys simply by walking into a restaurant and
yelling ‘halt!’ These days, it takes ten of us to catch a single criminal.”35 Although the story
varies in the telling, the point remains the same: street-level police no longer enjoy the
authority they once had. This sense of powerlessness applies to all officers, but it strikes
veteran cops hardest because it reminds them of days when they were significant figures in the
neighborhood. As policing becomes more technocratic and less respected by the general public,
many older officers feel old-fashioned and out-of-touch well before they reach retirement.36
Discontent and Its Influence on Police Effectiveness
Unhappy officers find it hard to care about their work. Although we expected to see
examples of ground-level innovation that increased police effectiveness,37 attempts to question
interviewees about this were usually met with blank stares or derision. Some mid-level officers,
like the supervisor who blamed inexperienced leaders for problems at his station, started with
Interview with two district station officers, Shaanxi, 2012.
Interview with a city station detective, Hebei, 2011.
Interview with four older city station officers, Hebei, 2010.
Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth J. Perry, Mao’s Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of
Adaptive Governance in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).
high hopes, only to give up on improving operations. For the majority of street-level cops,
finding a way to do their jobs better is not something they think much about. One officer
explained that local police are too poorly-trained and apathetic to be concerned with boosting
productivity.38 “Officers don’t want any cases where they have to collect evidence,” he said.
“They don’t know how to do it and they don’t want to learn.” Moreover, when assignments are
dangerous, officers often try to slide by and only meet the bare minimum expected of them,
such as filling quotas for traffic stops or issuing citations, and then move on to other tasks as
quickly as possible.39 For street-level cops who are just trying to make it through the day, there
are few reasons to worry about solving complicated cases or improving call response.
Like unhappy employees everywhere, discontented officers look for ways to avoid work.
Some shirking is easy to observe. Parked patrol cars filled with dozing officers are a common
sight on Chinese street corners. But most shirking occurs in the station house. Although none of
our respondents admitted to evading their responsibilities, some commented on goldbricking
by their co-workers. “The old guys do what they like,” explained one officer. “They don’t care
about new rules [forbidding government workers from drinking alcohol during lunchtime]. They
Interview with a district station junior officer, Shaanxi, 2012.
For the difficulties police officers face when enforcing the widely-ignored ban on motorized
rickshaws in Guangzhou, see Xu Jianhua, “Microfoundation of Violence toward Police in
Guangzhou: A Situational Exclusion Perspective,” (working paper). Xu shows that officers
pursue less experienced drivers, have to move quickly when confiscating vehicles, and work in
small teams during the daytime to minimize the risk of confrontation and personal injury.
just close their office door after lunch and go to sleep.” 40 While officers may prefer lunchtime
boozing over afternoon work for any number of reasons, a group of older cops cited the stress
that comes with the job when asked about their midday imbibing. 41 “Drinking is the only
pleasure we police have,” said one, as the others roared in agreement and continued enjoying
just the sort of alcohol-infused banquet they had been told to eschew.
Shirking can also take on more creative forms. “Protocols are not specific,” explained
one young officer.42 “One day I went to bust up a small hair salon,43 and when the boss fled, I
ran a long way until I finally caught him. My colleagues laughed at me and said I was crazy [to
chase the man]. We get paid so little and procedures don’t say what to do when criminals run.”
Whether shirking involves interpreting protocols to permit inaction or outright avoidance of
work, many unhappy police fail to throw themselves into investigations and apprehending
criminals, citing dissatisfaction as a justification for doing so. This type of shirking strains
resources, lengthens response time, and leads to unmotivated cops who would rather stand
around than take action.
Di they also exploit their access to money and people who want
something. Police unhappiness, and in particular dissatisfaction over low salaries, is a major
source of corruption. Although graft, bribe-taking, and extortion are well documented in the
Interview with a mid-level district officer, Hunan, 2009.
Interview with eight older officers in a city station, Hebei, 2009.
Interview with a young district officer, Shaanxi, 2012.
Hair salons are often fronts for houses of prostitution.
Chinese media and academic studies,44 few respondents, for obvious reasons, were willing to
discuss them. Nevertheless, one interviewee nearing retirement spoke freely of the gifts he had
received over his 30-year career as a patrolman and then a detective.45 His wife, overhearing
the conversation, half-jokingly complained: “He’s too honest. His colleagues accepted far more!
We wouldn’t have been so poor back then if he was truly corrupt!” Higher ranking officers and
Ministry officials commonly attribute corruption to the low moral character of street-level
cops,46 but studies of police elsewhere treat it as group behavior, with individuals acting for
systemic reasons, not in spite of them.47 Indeed, research on police corruption suggests that
some of the same job characteristics that make officers unhappy also motivate them to take
See, for example, “Jingcha Shou 9 Wan Huilu Fangzou Xingan Yifan” [Police accept 90,000
yuan in bribes to release suspects]; Boittin, “The Whore, the Hostess, and the Honey”; and
Elaine Jeffreys, “Exposing Police Corruption: China’s Virgin Prostitutes Cases,” in The China
Journal 63 (2010), pp. 127-152.
Interview with a city station detective, Hebei, 2011.
Interview with a district station chief, Beijing, 2013; Interview with a provincial ministry
officer, Hunan, 2012.
Maurice Punch, “Police Corruption and its Prevention,” in European Journal on Criminal Policy
and Research 8:3 (2000), pp. 301-324.
bribes. Economic models of police corruption show that bribe-taking is reduced when salaries
are increased and come to exceed the revenue derived from fines. 48
Beyond shirking and corruption, unhappiness also drives police to do things that are
harmless enough on their own but cause problems when they become too common. The patrol
captain who spoke of his frustration with getting men out of the office was not describing an
isolated incident. The realities of life on patrol lead most street-level police to seek out office
positions at the first opportunity. Although working all day in the station does not necessarily
make an unhappy officer happy, it is a step up, since these positions pay about the same,49
require less overtime, and lack the dangers of patrol work. “Everyone wants to be in the office,”
explained a mid-level supervisor, “but there isn’t enough work for so many people.” 50 This
phenomenon of too many “office officers” diminishes police effectiveness by distorting how
manpower is allocated. “The problem is very serious,” noted a cadre from the Hunan provincial
bureau of public security: “Each paichusuo should have five full-time workers, but many only
have two or three responding to calls. The rest stay in the office and do nothing.” 51 Too many
office officers also undermines station capabilities because the most experienced beat cops are
not on the streets, and others who know the territory less well and have fewer long-standing
Gary S. Becker and George J. Stigler, “Law Enforcement, Malfeasance, and Compensation of
Enforcers,” in The Journal of Legal Studies 3:1 (1974), pp. 1-18.
Interview with a ministry official, Beijing, 2012.
Interview with a mid-level supervisor in a district station, Hunan, 2012.
Interview with a provincial ministry officer, Hunan, 2012.
relationships with residents are. Nowadays, patrol cops tend to be young and green, just
waiting for the chance to leave the street behind. “Their lack of experience makes it hard for
them to do a good job,” lamented one assistant station chief. 52
Addressing Discontent
Dissatisfaction on the ground is no secret. Street-level officers have been known to speak
anonymously to journalists about their frustrations,53 and police journals regularly publish
articles about the pressures cops face.54 A recent entertainment special produced by the
Ministry of Public Security’s public affairs department acknowledged the difficulties of frontline police by opening with a rousing song in which the refrain, “You work hard! [nimen xinku
la],” was repeated 24 times.55 Even a department-level official in the Ministry confirmed the
Interview with an assistant station chief, Hunan, 2012.
for example, Wang Xiangming, Yang Tao, and Ye Feng, “Jingcha Bu Gaoxing, You Kunnan,
Buneng Quan Zhao Wo, Wo Bushi Chaoren” [Police unhappy, face difficulties, do not come to
me for everything, I’m not superman] Southern Metropolis Daily, April 18, 2009,
& /H/html//content_764080.htm&.
See, for example, Peng, “Jingcha Zhiye Yali Fenxi Ji Yingdui Cuoshi Jianyi” [The analysis of
pressures on police officers and relevant recommendations].
The song, which also featured female dancers in pink tutus and tiny hats, male dancers in
stylized white police uniforms, a background slideshow of police in action, and a bubble
machine, was shown to front-line officers around the country. “Yilu Zhenqing: Gonganbu
costs of police dissatisfaction while a colleague sitting nearby nodded in agreement: “[groundlevel police] complain about many things, such as low salaries, dangerous work, and
performance checks that require a lot of preparation . . . These worries hurt their work.”56
Beyond concerns about job performance, the Ministry is worried that dissatisfaction and
the conditions that create it can contribute to serious health problems. Officers struggling with
long overtime shifts and other physical stresses common to the job may face exhaustion,
compromised immune systems, and in rare cases a condition called “death by overwork” [guo
lao si]. Police and officials have been more open about discussing officer health problems in
recent years, and in 2006 the Ministry brought attention to the issue by dedicating the annual
International Police Day to improving physical and mental health.57
When addressing health issues, both Ministry and local leaders focus on increasing the
physical strength and stamina of ground-level police. Concrete steps to improve officer wellbeing include the institutionalization of “fitness training compliance standards” [jingcha tiyu
‘Gongan Wenhua Jiceng Xing’ Wenyi Xiaofendui Zhuanchang Huibao Yanchu” [True feelings
through the journey: The Ministry of Public Security’s ‘grassroots public security culture’ arts
squad special report performance], 2012. For more information on this group, see
&http://www./n16/n75799/index.html&, accessed December 5, 2014.
Interview, Hunan, 2012.
“Jintian Shi ‘Guoji Jingcha Ri” Guanzhu Minjing Shenxin Jiankang” [Today is “International
Police Day” calls attention to police mental and health well-being] Xinhua, March 13, 2006,
&/06/C61FVT.html&.
duanlian dabiao biaozhun], implementation of exercise programs, and requirements that
recruits be more physically fit when they take up the job.58 Other reforms also indirectly
address the health of officers, such as rules forbidding lunchtime drinking and a more stringent
policy recently enacted in Beijing that even cracks down on alcohol consumption outside the
Though most efforts to improve the health of officers focus on increasing physical fitness,
reports of emotional duress and suicide60 have driven some public security bureaus to devise
programs that address the psychological challenges officers confront. Municipal bureaus in
Xiamen, Chengdu, Nanjing and Shenzhen have conducted officer satisfaction surveys and
Wang Haiyuan, “Jingcha Jiankang Zhuangkang Yu Jianshen Duanlian Xianzhuang De Fenxi
Yanjiu” [Analysis of the health and physical exercise of the police], in Gonganyanjiu [Policing
Studies] 5:115 (2009), pp. 98-102.
“Beijing Gonganju Shishi Jinjiuling: Jingcha Guanbing Jiating Yiwai Jinzhi Hejiu” [Beijing Public
Security Bureau implements prohibition: alcohol is now prohibited outside the home] Sina,
January 24, 2014,
&/gb/chn/chnlocal/phoenixtv/.html&.
Han Haikuo, “Jingcha Sisha Qian Biaoxian Ji Xinli Ganyu” [Psychological intervention and
police behavior before suicide], in Gansu Jingcha Zhiye Xueyuan Xuebao [Journal of Gansu
Police Vocational College] 10 (2012), pp. 55-59 and Hu Wannian, “Jingcha Xinli Jiankang Wenti
de Chengyin Jiqi Yingdui Zhice” [Causes and policy regarding police mental health problems], in
Gongan Yanjiu [Policing Studies] 3 (2009), pp. 59-64.
opened hotlines for troubled police.61 Guangdong’s bureau made headlines in 2003 when it
required that all officers involved in shootings or other violent incidents see a psychologist
within 48 hours.62 In Jiangsu, street-level police attend training classes to help them develop
coping mechanisms for managing workplace stress.63 Following the lead of Guangdong and
Jiangsu, other provinces, including Hunan and Shaanxi, collect data through online, anonymous
surveys and have plans to follow up with helplines and mental health training. 64 At the national
level, the Ministry provides counseling to officers across China, but these services are seldom
used, owing to poor publicity and reluctance to seek help. “Most officers do not know they can
see a psychologist,” explained a provincial public security official in Hunan, “which is bad
because many do not know how to deal with workplace stress.” 65
But even if cops use them, psychological services are not likely to ease police discontent
much. One older officer chuckled when asked about the benefits of having therapists to turn to.
He said that today’s recruits “have university degrees but are too soft.” 66 Backtracking a bit, he
“Alarm bells for cops battling with mental anguish,” China Daily, January 21, 2005,
&.cn/english/doc//content_411120.htm&.
Jane Cai, “Guangdong Police who Kill or Injure Obliged to Get Counseling,” South China
Morning Post, August 4, 2003, p. 4.
“Alarm bells for cops battling with mental anguish.”
Interview with a provincial bureau officer, Hunan, 2012.
Interview with a provincial bureau officer, Hunan, 2012.
Interview with a city station detective, Hebei, 2013.
continued: “Maybe it will help some cops, but what most of us want is more money and
respect.” When it comes to addressing the causes of discontent, the Ministry and local bureaus
are making headway, but not enough to make a difference for most officers.
Boosting the budgets of city and rural stations would ease many grievances, but efforts to
lift funding rarely translate into more money in police pockets or more men on the ground.
Financial reforms begun in 2003 were designed to increase cash flow to ground-level stations
by making counties contribute a higher percentage of their budge however,
reports of station expenditures in four provinces (Guangdong, Jiangsu, Qinghai and Ningxia)
show that much of this money is used to pay down debts, not support operations. 67 Although
stations in richer locales may be thriving because of local government outlays―Guangzhou’s
officers pull in a widely admired 10,000 RMB (US$ 1600) monthly and have some of the best
equipment in China―almost everywhere else lags Guangdong, with poorer areas the farthest
behind. Even the large influx of “stability maintenance” funds over the last decade has not
helped much. Officers in Hunan, Shaanxi, and Hebei report that this infusion is too little to
cover basic weiwen tasks like house arrests, let alone enough to hike salaries or add officers to
the force.68 At best, station leaders use part of this money to hire unofficial auxiliary police,
Xie, “Rising Central Spending on Public Security.”
Interview with a city station detective, Hebei, 2012; Interview with a mid-level officer, Hunan,
2012; Interview with a provincial bureau officer, Hunan, 2012; Interview with a mid-level
officer, Shaanxi, 2012.
adding a new underclass of low paid, untrained security workers who many regular cops believe
create more problems than they solve.69
Other grievances are not likely to be addressed because the Ministry (and the reforms it is
spearheading) are their source. This reflects a gap in perceptions between top leaders and
street-level cops over how police power should be exercised. Where officers see respect and
authority when they reminisce about one officer catching ten criminals, Ministry leaders
perceive a potential for abuse of authority that needs to be curtailed. One senior official from
the Beijing municipal police force explained the Ministry’s view: “In those days, the police had a
lot of power because there were no real laws. . . Police could do whatever they wanted, but this
was bad for the country. Now, the law is more important than individuals. . . It doesn’t matter if
it takes more men to do the job.”70 Time and again, Ministry officials spoke of the importance
of law as a means for controlling officers on the streets. “Local police should not act on their
own,” explained one mid-ranking Ministry cadre, “their job is to implement the laws passed by
the People’s Congress.”71 Toward this end, the Ministry has initiated reforms that increase
reporting requirements for officers who might otherwise ignore procedures and regulations
and has disarmed most cops out of fear they might lose their weapons or discharge them
In interviews, officers often complained about xiejing, whose numbers are growing as local
stations turn to them for cheap labor. Xiejing are believed to be giving police a bad name
because of their frequent involvement in beatings and mishandled disputes.
Interview, Beijing, 2013.
Interview, Beijing, 2012.
recklessly. These changes greatly frustrate officers on the ground but reflect a growing
commitment to curbing street-level autonomy. Unless these reforms are reversed, and there
are no signs of that, police are likely to keep grumbling.
Variation and Future Research
Though widespread, dissatisfaction is not an issue for every cop at every station or at
every level. The cities where officers were interviewed were all middle-of-the-road in economic
development, and location and wealth might make a difference for satisfaction rates. In rich
provinces such as Guangdong, high salaries and ample resources may lead to less discontent.
Dissatisfaction may also decline when front-line officers reach leadership positions. Owing to an
inability to access them, only two such individuals were interviewed, and neither revealed their
personal feelings about their jobs. Finally, some street-level police remain unfazed by the
stress, and a few interviewees said they were content in their position. One officer explained,
“The job has many problems, but I don’t mind. I’ve wanted to be a cop since I was a young boy.
It’s my duty.”72
Dissatisfaction may also be present, but vary along dimensions that we were not able to
explore. Well-paid officers in populous, crime-ridden Guangzhou may have different grievances
than poorly paid ones in remote, low-crime cities in Inner Mongolia. Dissatisfaction may also be
more severe and have greater consequences in poorer areas, where officers are overworked
Interview with a district city station officer, Shaanxi, 2012.
and have little time for the shirking described by the cops who were interviewed. Moreover,
different types of police may experience dissatisfaction differently. We have focused on
grievances voi there remains much to be learned about the challenges
faced by specialized forces (such as SWAT teams and traffic cops), auxiliary police, and police
bureaucrats who work at higher levels and the Ministry. 73 One way to examine variation by
type of job is to analyze how other officers’ grievances reflect or diverge from the sources of
frustration identified among front-line police. Lack of resources, monotonous work, limited
supervisory powers, and consequences of professionalization may or may not create
dissatisfaction for other officers, insofar as some types of police are more likely to be bothered
by certain grievances than others. Auxiliary officers, for example, may be more affected by lack
of resources and monotonous work than limitations on their ability to supervise others.
Furthermore, they may have additional concerns that are not an issue for official police.
With the vast majority of our interviewees expressing unhappiness and the Ministry
taking steps to manage dissatisfaction, there is good reason to believe that ground-level
discontent is rife, if not universal. Beyond the problems that unhappiness creates for police
effectiveness, these findings raise questions about the impact dissatisfaction can have on the
job performance of other government workers. Are other street-level bureaucrats equally
The first author addresses frustrations experienced by ministry officials in her Ph.D.
dissertation on the police bureaucracy in China.
unhappy? One potential group for further study is the chengguan,74 who are poorly
compensated and known across China for their thuggish reputation, willingness to take bribes,
and frequent confrontations with the public.75 These officers are likely even more dissatisfied
with their work than police, and their grievances may be exacerbating their contentious
relationship with residents and compromising their ability to carry out their duties. Similarly,
grassroots tax collectors and family planning workers are engaged in trying and universally-
The chengguan are even more understudied than the police in China, though a few recent
works touch on the jurisdiction of chengguan and their activities. See Gary Sigley, “From
Revolution to Government, from Contradictions to Harmony: Urban Community Policing in
Post-Deng China,” in Policing Cities: Urban Securitization and Regulation in a 21st Century
World, ed. Randy Lippert and Kevin Walby (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 29-42 and Xu,
“Authoritarian Policing with Chinese Characteristics.”
An attack in Hunan by chengguan officials resulted in the death of a watermelon seller and
sparked local protests that made headlines around the world. See Chris Luo, “Fury as Hunan
Watermelon Seller is ‘Beaten to Death by Chengguan,’” South China Morning Post, July 18,
2013, &/news/china/article/1285309/watermelon-vendors-deathtriggers-overnight-protest-hunan&. Later that same year, 18 chengguan officers in Xiamen were
severely burned after being doused with sulfuric acid by angry residents. Jeremy Blum,
“Eighteen Chengguan Officers Hospitalized after Acid Attack,” South China Morning Post,
October 13, 2013, &/news/china-insider/article/1334519/eighteenchengguan-officers-hospitalised-after-acid-attack&.
disliked tasks and their attitudes toward their occupation should tell us more about the
hardships of front-line work. Further research is needed on the grievances of China’s streetlevel bureaucrats and the consequences of job dissatisfaction for state-society relations,
security enforcement, and service provision.
Finally, plunging into the world of street-level police helps us see why cops are often
seen as lazy and corrupt, and gives us cause to rethink the image of officers as tools of a highly
securitized state, quashing protests at every turn. China is often thought of as a well-funded
and tightly organized security state, with a full palette of formal and informal agencies to
maintain social order. Front-line police are only one part of that apparatus, but their
unhappiness and weak job performance suggests a certain brittleness that may signal problems
elsewhere. Since 1989, the Party has proven quite adept at managing or at least suppressing
social unrest, but dissatisfaction and mismanagement of the lower levels of the security state
speaks to abiding weaknesses that merit more attention. What ground-level agents of state
power have to say matters. As our interviews reveal, the life of a front-line cop is filled with
uncertainty, hardship, and feelings of powerlessness.76 Their accounts, self-serving as they may
On other seemingly well-placed individuals (work unit leaders drawn into demolition work,
retired military officers) who feel powerless, or even see themselves as members of a “weak
and vulnerable group” (ruoshi qunti) see Kevin J. O’Brien and Yanhua Deng, “The Reach of the
State: Work Units, Family Ties and ‘Harmonious Demolition,’” in The China Journal 74 (2015)
(forthcoming), and Kevin J. O’Brien and Neil J. Diamant, “Contentious Veterans: China’s Retired
be, show them in a new light: as overburdened, under-armed and unhappy men and women
trying to make the most of a difficult job.
Officers Speak Out,” in Armed Forces and Society (forthcoming).
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