Police stations to be monitored

Police in the capital said Tuesday they have established an online supervision system to provide round-the-clock surveillance of Beijing's primary police stations.

According to a press release from Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau (PSB), the system monitors some 30 different departments at three levels, including the street, district and city level.

Apart from the video surveillance system, it will record all telephone calls from the public.

The PSB said that by monitoring the fundamental level of the police, the system will help to increase the PSB's ability to serve citizens and decrease the risks and problems within the PSB. What the specific risks and problems are was not specified.

Lin Zhe, a professor specializing in anti-corruption at the Party School of the Communist Party of China, said this is a good sign of improvement as the PSB is making more efforts on supervision.

"Even though it's self-supervision, people should be aware that the police department must have its own concerns about public security issues involving confidential information which sometimes cannot be given to the public, therefore it can only be a self-supervised system," said Lin.

The PSB said this system is an important part of its efforts to build Beijing as the safest city, as well as making the most honest and upright police force in China.

"This is a response to the government's determination to 'restrict power in the cage of regulations,' as well as 'letting the power operate in the sunshine,'" the press release said.

There is a team of around 320 people to monitor police operations, and it has helped to discover and solve some 2,700 different problems in 2012. The PSB did not provide details of the problems.

Wang Taiyuan, a professor from the Chinese People's Public Security University specializing in police services, argued though supervision of the police is necessary, it is better done by allowing people and society to observe their performance, rather than letting cameras do the job.

"A policeman is not a pawn, and it is a job which requires quick and flexible reactions at the scene, as well as the ability of using laws wisely. Such things can hardly be understood by those who sit in an office and get information from cameras. I'm afraid this system will add extra limits to the job of the police," said Wang.

"This system supervises police, but who will supervise this system? We need better regulations to let the people and society supervise the police," he noted.

The PSB would not comment Tuesday.