Petition Against the Police: Conflicts Between Police and Civilians in China, 2003–2012 (IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy) 9811902674, 9789811902673

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IPP STUDIES IN THE FRONTIERS OF CHINA’S PUBLIC POLICY

Petition Against the Police Conflicts Between Police and Civilians in China, 2003–2012

Lin Huihuang

IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy

Series Editor Feng Zhang, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy combines original research and theoretical innovation to provide fresh insights into the fastchanging landscape of China’s public policy. Books in the series, written by scholars based inside China or commissioned by the IPP, draw on local Chinese experiences to generate empirical findings and theoretical insights. The field of China’s public policy is broadly defined to include all aspects of the country’s social, economic, technological and foreign policies. The series encourage interdisciplinary approaches to public policy, with a special but not exclusive focus on the study of south China, especially the Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau Greater Bay Area, one of the most vibrant regions of growth and innovation in China.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/16798

Lin Huihuang

Petition Against the Police Conflicts Between Police and Civilians in China, 2003–2012

Lin Huihuang Institute of Public Policy South China University of Technology Guangzhou, China

IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy ISBN 978-981-19-0267-3 ISBN 978-981-19-0268-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Contributor: P. S. Art Design Studio/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

I would like to dedicate this book to my wife Wu Qiuju and son Lin Yutong.

Foreword by Zheng Yongnian

This is a very extraordinary study. Dr. Lin Huihuang conducted his field investigation in a police station for more than half a year. He got along with various policemen all day long, participated in and observed their law enforcement activities. As a result, he obtained precious first hand data and wrote a series of articles about law enforcement in China. Huihuang’s “Studies on Policing” involves petition, mediation and policing reform, and fully displays the governance form of contemporary grassroots police. I consider “petition” as a basic issue. The author intends to explain why the petition cost decreases but common people’s way of safeguarding their rights through petition narrows. It sounds very interesting. According to common sense, it should be easier for common people to petition to safeguard their rights as the petition cost decreases. However, Huihuang’s observations show that it is not the case, and the fact is just the opposite. Why? Petition is an institutional arrangement with Chinese characteristics. It is a very important way of political participation for common people and an effective means to supervise grassroots officers for government at higher levels. Petition behavior and petition system are originated from the ancient times. Although current Chinese petition system and regulations have changed greatly, their essence and logic almost remain unchanged. At least many people think so. Nevertheless, Huihuang finds

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that current petition logic seems to be different from it was and the changes in the petition logic lead to a phenomenon that “the petition cost decreases while the way to safeguard the rights narrows”. To support this theoretical assumption, Huihuang developed his argument in the following steps. First, he identifies the problem of petition alienation according to detailed data analysis. Plenty of cases in progress and cases without causes pour into the petition channel and even some cases directly go through the petition procedures before reported. Second, petition prevails because it is believed to resist police’s misconduct, including corruption, violation and flaws of law enforcement. Grassroots police’s misconduct will be reported to superior department through petition in order to regain public benefits. Third, as a supervisory organization of the police, the Policing Supervision Department is responsible for handling grassroots police’s misconduct. However, whereas the Policing Supervision Department often follows the principle of “no-fault punishment” while handling a case, namely any petition against the police will be deemed as the police’s liability. As a result, reducing the petition quantity instead of carrying out effective petition governance becomes a major task of grassroots police. Fourth, some petitioners use police’s mentality of “petition elimination” to coerce the police to satisfy their unreasonable appeals and consequently petition tends to be irrational. Objectively, irrational petition always exists. Generally speaking, the petition governance system should be able to identify and isolate irrational petitions and take disciplinary actions against the petitioners. In the current petition system, although the police is quite familiar with irrational petitions, it is hard to isolate them and even harder to take disciplinary actions. Once disciplinary actions are taken against the petitioners, they will submit a petition to the superior department and consequently grassroots police will receive “no-fault punishment”. In this case, irrational petitions spread quickly and rational petitions are prone to be ignored due to lack of petition skills. Fifth, to avoid “no-fault punishment” by the superior department, grassroots police tries to reduce the petition quantity through violence or bribery and becomes increasingly slack in daily work. Violent petition interruption was a common way, but now it is less and less adopted due to “high political risk”. On the contrary, bribery is increasingly adopted.

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Nevertheless, the petitioner will often make more irrational appeals once they are bribed and it will be difficult for grassroots police to get out of trouble. It is just because grassroots police is aware of this vicious circle that they become increasingly slack in law enforcement and lose the initiative about public security mediation, since they find that “the more they are positive, the more troubles will be caused”. The author defines “petition elimination” behaviors and “negative law enforcement” behaviors of the police as “the second form of misconduct” to distinguish from “the first form of misconduct” on the police’s abuse of power. Last, the author puts forward the framework of interpretation of “decline in decision making ability” and considers the aforesaid chaotic phenomena of petition exist because of the decline in power system’s ability of dispute identification, judgment and handling. Any social governance system needs to set up a standard of justice and have the ability of implementation. Once such ability is weakened, the superior unit will refuse to assume the liability and the subordinate unit will become slack in work. This book has a very clear logic of argument. Especially detailed and accurate cases further consolidate the process of argumentation and fully explain why the current petition system and public security mediation can hardly play their part. Anti-corruption and other large-scale movements indeed play a critical role in screwing up the discipline of officials, but also make local governments overcautious. As a result, corruption is governed, but some local governments are afraid of making mistakes and consequently become slack in administration, which is another form of corruption. Based on the aforesaid argumentations, this book draws three major conclusions. First, petition is more than a matter of power but a matter of political ethics. Previous studies on politics or political sociology often focused on power. It is believed that government has too much power and consequently damages public benefit, which causes large numbers of petitions. However, the author shows that tort-related petitions occur undoubtedly, but irrational petition epidemic is more worrisome, which will largely hinder from rational petitions, disturb the order of public security mediation and affect the effect of policing reform.

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Next, it is costly to exercise public rights and costless/low-cost rights may hinder their exertion. It is easy to understand that a too high cost of rights is largely an abrogation of right, because only a few people can afford it. Essentially, it is not right but privilege. Nevertheless, people seldom consider that the result may not be satisfactory if the cost of rights is lowered infinitely and even canceled. Once there are no limits of rights, enforcement of rights will be terrible excessive consumption. What’s worse, people who are ineligible to exercise the rights will quickly occupy limited right resources to damage the rights and interests of most people. Third, good petition order and mediation order are backed by a balance of governmental hierarchies. The petition system involves the petitioner, the interviewed unit and the superior unit. A basic petition structure is that the petitioner requests the superior unit to handle an event of the interviewed unit, the superior unit investigates the situation, make a judgment and handle the event according to law. Therefore, a balance of governmental hierarchies is very critical for effectively solving petition problems. If the superior government is afraid to assume the liability and reluctant to make a judgment, but passes the buck to the interviewed unit and even blames on the subordinate unit, the subordinate unit will just not know what to do and even have nonfeasance, and normal public security mediation activity will get into trouble. In this sense, petition and mediation are not only a matter between the petitioner and the government but also a matter between governmental hierarchies. The above conclusions are not commonplace but quite suggestive viewpoints obtained from the author’s abundant case studies and rigorous argumentations. It is worth reading for those that are interested in studying police and petition as well as political sociology and organizational sociology. It should be especially noted that the conclusions are worth further exploring, such as how to further display the power operation mechanism of local government and the logic of administrative system reform and how to further display the structure and change of China’s political ethics, and so on. These problems are not thoroughly

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analyzed and I hope Huihuang or other interested scholars may discuss these problems more thoroughly based on this series of works.

Zheng Yongnian Director, The Advanced Institute for Global and Contemporary China The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shenzhen, China Chairman, The Academic Board of Institute of Public Policy South China University of Technology Guangzhou, China

Foreword by He Xuefeng

Dr. Huihuang conducted his fieldwork on the police for half a year. During that time, he lived together with the police and observed their work condition and daily life closely for a deep understanding of their difficulties in handling petition problems, carrying out public security mediation and policing reform. Most importantly, Huihuang thoroughly studied the operation mechanism for contemporary Chinese grassroots police using precious fieldwork data. For this reason, these books are worth reading. In the course of violent change in China’s rural society, socialized control system and organized control system weakened continuously, and specialized control system guided by public security system became increasingly important. The long-standing bureaucratism and abuse of power seriously weakened the role of public security system in social control. It was just in this context that a series of policing reform was conducted since 2003. It is strange that according to Huihuang’ studies, policing reform further intensified the bureaucratic trend of grassroots public security organs in recent years and consequently public security mediation became an overwhelming task for frontline police. What’s worse, public security mediation of grassroots police station was gradually alienated and fell into a predicament of “irreversible public security mediation”: As security administration lost public trust, the police had to promote superficial reconciliation of disputes through continuous mediation, which resulted

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in a bigger difficulty in social control through public mediation. Why? Huihuang found it was closely connected to the operation mechanism for petition against the police. Petition, as a unique political system, has double functions in public opinion collection and right relief in China’s social governance framework. On one hand, the state can timely understand public opinions about local government through petition system to correct their behavioral biases. On the other hand, the public can seek the last help through petition if they still think their rights are not relieved effectively through judicial procedure. From a perspective of political sociology, the petition system mainly involves central government, local government and the public, and the petition process is actually a dynamic game process among them. Huihuang thoroughly discussed the logic of irrational petition generation through numerous case studies and data analyses. Previous studies on petition mostly focus on the normal form of safeguarding rights and stand for that petition appears in large numbers because governmental power is not effectively supervised and public power infringes on public rights and interests, so social protest is caused. Huihuang found from indepth field investigation that the rise of various irrational petitions was worrying even though right safeguarding petition still existed. He also found that more than 2/3 of petition was conducted before the cases were closed, and more than 80% was no-fault petition. The irrational and profit-driven trend of petition severely hindered from safeguarding rights through petition. Huihuang also noted that irrational petition had an extremely strong demonstration and assimilation effect, since more and more well-grounded petition behaviors were translated into irrational petition and cause a lot of troubles to normal law enforcement of the police. Huihuang established a complete explanation system and carried out a convincing analysis of the current petition trend especially irrational petition according to the following logics: 1. The practical petition governance system can hardly identify irrational petition and grassroots police often reduces the petition quantity to solve the problems, trying to smooth things over and unprincipled compromise. 2. Petition governance loses the ability to identify the emerging petition cases, which can just be solved through “violence” or “bribery”.

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With increasing political and legal risks in “petition governance by violence”, the police adopt this method less and less. Instead, they prefer bribery. 3. Through making or threatening to make a petition event, the petitioner gains the upper hand and seeks profits. 4. More and more irrational petition and profit-driven petition quickly change the nature of petition, occupy the limited petition resources and hinder from safeguarding rights through petition. 5. To scramble for petition resources against irrational petition, rational petition tends to arouse attention in an irrational and even illegal way. 6. The petition system attracts more and more petitions, though it cannot solve the problems. The petition system is alienated as irrational petition increases sharply and rational petition gradually turns into irrational petition. These works are a series of research achievements made by Huihuang based on his doctoral dissertation. As a researcher of rural governance, Huihuang carries out follow-up studies on irrational petition and profitdriven petition after Tian Xianhong and other researchers, and based on this, he includes the studies on police in the discussion about political ethics and accelerates the studies on rural governance in China. Based on the above analysis, I think Huihuang’s “Studies on Police” worth reading for all people who concern about policing reform, petition problems, grassroots governance, and institutional issues of Chinese government.

He Xuefeng “Yangtze River Scholar” Distinguished Professor Dean, School of Sociology Wuhan University Wuhan, China

Contents

1

Introduction Start from “Justice (青天)” Petition and Petition Against the Police Literature Review and Research Approach Data Source References

1 1 7 11 13 14

2

Overview of the Petition Against the Police: Data Analysis Appeals of Petitions Against the Police Repeat Petition and First Petition Rural–Urban Differences in the Petition Against the Police Conclusion References

17 18 34 40 49 54

3

Why the Police Are “Accused”? Police and Corruption “Five Prohibitions” and Others Law Enforcement Flaw The First Form of Misconduct References

55 55 57 60 63 66

4

Policing Supervision and Panopticism “Supervision Storm” Technology of Power of “Policing Supervision”

67 67 71 xvii

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CONTENTS

Organizational Network of Policing Supervision Policing Supervision Under Panopticism Reference

75 78 81

Zero Tolerance and “Nonfeasance for Fear of Complaint” Zero Tolerance Policy A System That Allows No Mistakes Ungrounded Complaint and No-Fault Punishment “Nonfeasance for Fear of Complaint” References

83 83 86 89 94 97

6

“Petition Temptation” and Irrational Petition “Accuse the Police” Judge “the Judge” Formation of “Petition Temptation” Make an Irrational Petition References

99 99 103 109 112 115

7

“Petition” Against “Petition” “The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease” Irrationalization of Rational Petition “Unruly People” or the People? “Self-Denial” of Petition System References

117 117 120 125 128 130

8

Excessive Discipline and the Second Form of Police’s Misconduct Fight “Nonfeasance for Fear of Complaint” “The Second Form of Misconduct” “Unprincipledness” Against “Unprincipledness” Self-Opposition and Nihilism Reference

133 133 137 140 143 145

Petition Governance and Its Dialectics Petition and Rule of Law Irrational Petition Governance Dialectics of Petition Governance Petition Rediscovery: Power Discipline and Right Cost References

147 147 149 154 160 165

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CONTENTS

10

Conclusion Petition Governance and Power Decision-Making Ability Construction of Law Enforcement Standardization and Legal Involution Reconstruction of Power Decision-Making Ability References

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167 167 174 179 182

Postscript

183

Index

185

About the Author

Lin Huihuang, Ph.D. in Sociology, is a research professor and assistant dean of Institute of Public Policy (IPP), South China University of Technology, and director of Social Policy Research Center. He mainly studies on social governance and social policy. He has published more than 30 academic papers in China: An International Journal, Internal Manuscripts of Social Sciences in China, Chinese Public Administration, Comparative Economic and Social Systems, China Rural Survey, Open Times and other journals.

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List of Main Characters1

Su Sheng Wu Tianming Hua Jianbin

Niu Liqun

Wang Xueni Lin Yuejin

GuanYong Sheng Dongqiang

Director of Linxiang Township Police Station Political commissar of Linxiang Township Police Station Deputy director of Linxiang Township Police Station, responsible for work of the Public Security Brigade Deputy director of Linxiang Township Police Station, responsible for work of the Traffic Police Brigade Director of the General Affairs Office of Linxiang Township Police Station Deputy director of the General Affairs Office of Linxiang Township Police Station, responsible for logistics work Director of the Community Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station Leader of the 1st Squadron of the Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station

1 The author interviews and gets in touch with much more persons, but only major

interviewees are set forth due to limited space and it does not represent insignificance of those not set forth. Besides, all names of persons and places are anonymous necessarily according to academic conventions.

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LIST OF MAIN CHARACTERS

Shen Qiang Chen Weidong Lin Wenzhang Li Chenghua

Yang Guowei Huang Yu Zhu Jianguo Chen Shengli Xu Pinliang Ji Xiang Qian Kun Chen Liangbao Lei Zhenfeng Li Yiheng Dong Shao Yu Hu Tu Long GaoYiming Ming Liang

Leader of the 2nd Squadron of the Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station Leader of the 3rd Squadron of the Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station Leader of the 1st Squadron of the Criminal Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station Leader of the 2nd Squadron of the Criminal Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station Instructor of Traffic Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Public Security Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station

LIST OF MAIN CHARACTERS

Su Xiaolong Cheng Hua Long Xiang Jia Qinguo Huang Qingshan Yu Xiaoli Wei Xiaojun Geng Dali Cheng Long Mi Fu Yi Li Wen Bing Wei Guang Feng Sijing Laoshang Zhang Jiabao Liang Xiaohu Liang Shoucheng Liu Xiaoqing Ahua Xiaomei

xxv

A member of Criminal Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Criminal Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Traffic Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Traffic Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Traffic Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Community Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Community Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Community Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Community Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Community Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Community Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Community Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Community Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A member of Community Police Brigade of Linxiang Township Police Station A guard of Central Hospital Secretary of Zhangcun Village, Linxiang Township Secretary of Liangcun Village, Linxiang Township A villager of Liangcun Village, Linxiang Township A regular petitioner A regular petitioner A patient with intermittent psychosis

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3

Time distribution of causal events of petitions against the police Time distribution of repeat petition and first petition Rural–urban differences in time distribution of cases of petitions

19 37 43

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List of Tables

Table Table Table Table

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4

Table 2.5 Table 2.6 Table 2.7 Table 2.8 Table 2.9 Table 2.10 Table 2.11 Table 2.12 Table 2.13 Table 2.14 Table 2.15 Table 2.16 Table 2.17

Level and quantity of petitions against the police Number of petitioners Ranking of appeals of petitions against the police Appeals of petitions against the police in A City (classified by object) Appeals specific to a case (A) (classified by object) Appeals specific to the police arising from a case (B) (classified by object) Appeals specific to the police (C) (classified by object) Other appeals (D) (classified by object) Dual appeals of petitions against the police in A City (classified by object) Triple appeals of petitions against the police in A City (classified by object) Appeals of petitions against the police in A City (classified by process) Supervise the progress of a case (a) (classified by process) Distrust the law enforcement process (b) (classified by process) Feel dissatisfied with the case result (c) (classified by process) Request for rehabilitation (d) (classified by process) Other appeals (e) (classified by process) Dual appeals of petitions against the police in A City (classified by process)

18 18 20 21 22 22 23 23 24 25 25 26 26 27 27 28 29

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.18 Table 2.19 Table 2.20 Table 2.21 Table 2.22 Table 2.23 Table 2.24 Table 2.25 Table 2.26 Table 2.27 Table 2.28 Table 2.29 Table 2.30 Table 2.31 Table 2.32 Table 2.33 Table 2.34 Table 2.35 Table 2.36 Table 2.37 Table 2.38 Table 2.39 Table 2.40 Table 2.41 Table 2.42

Triple appeals of petitions against the police in A City (classified by process) Ranking of causal events of petitions against the police in A City Causal events of petitions against the police in A City Causal events of petitions against the police in A City (accident) Causal events of petitions against the police in A City (disputes) Causal events of petitions against the police in A City (legal violations) Causal events of petitions against the police in A City (crimes) Revisits among petitions against the police in A City Leapfrog petition among petitions against the police in A City Sex and quantity of repeat petitions and first petitions (by registrant) Number of petitioners of repeat petitions and first petitions Comparison of appeals of repeat petition and first petition (classified by object) Comparison of appeals of repeat petition and first petition (classified by process) Ranking and comparison of appeals of repeat petitions and first petitions Comparison of causal events of repeat petitions and first petitions (classified by causal events) Comparison of events of repeat petitions and first petitions Rural–urban differences in sex and quantity of petitions Rural–urban differences in the number of petitioners Rural–urban differences in the appeals of petitions (classified by object) Rural–urban differences in the appeals of petitions (classified by process) Rural–urban differences in ranking of appeals of petition Rural–urban differences in event of petition Rural–urban differences in ranking of causal events of petitions Rural–urban differences in repeat petitions (revisits) Rural–urban differences in leapfrog petitions

30 31 32 32 33 33 34 34 35 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 49

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

With rapid advancement of China’s modernization transformation, an unprecedented petition (信访) trend rose in recent years. According to statistics, the national petition quantity kept rising for 13 consecutive years from 1992 to 2004. In 2000, county-level or above Party and government offices accepted up to 10.24 million petitions, topping 10 million for the first time. The petition quantity had a year-on-year growth rate of 8.7%, 2.9% and 13.4% in 2001, 2002 and 2004, respectively. I have carried out field investigation in rural China for years and have found that the petition system is facing adverse conditions. For one thing, the petition quantity is growing continuously and it seems as if the petition channel has widened. For another, the way to safeguard rights through petition has narrowed and “justice” is becoming farther and farther.

Start from “Justice (青天)” “Justice” and “Injustice” “Justice” seems to be more important than rule of law for Chinese people. The so-called “Justice” is the high trust of common people for state power and the strong expectation for impartiality of power holders. “Justice Bao (包青天) ” has been the most familiar and kindest term for Chinese people and represents a righteous image for the public. Even until now, any official © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Huihuang, Petition Against the Police, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0_1

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L. HUIHUANG

who serves the people wholeheartedly and punishes and uproots all evils may be hailed as “Justice Li” or “Justice Wang”.

“Justice” shows specific rules as a righteous image. That is, people with greater power have a clearer image of “justice”; while people with lower power has a vaguer image of “justice” and even are no longer “justice”. Just as common people say, “the central government is a benefactor and grass-roots cadres are enemies”. It is probably because of two factors: One is morality. It is often considered that only people with better morality are eligible and able to hold greater power; while people with greater power are often considered to be more moral. The other is benefit. People with greater power get along with common people less and there will be fewer conflicts of interests, so they are more likely to be more impartial while handling conflicts. Feeling wronged, common people will complain to “justice” and request for fair treatment. In ancient times, common people often sought help from “justice” through “beating a Dengwei drum (击登闻鼓)” or directly “blocking the way to voice grievances (拦路鸣冤)”. Nowadays, they file a petition in different ways. Essentially the same, both voice grievances for help to people with greater power. The difference is that people had to pay a high costs to “beat a Dengwei drum” or “block the way to voice grievances”. To prove the injustice, the petitioner had to wait for a period patiently and even undergo sufferings of flesh, which was the way to eliminate unruly people who made trouble out of nothing. Certainly, these requests for self-testification seem very brutal for modern people, since such self-testification means that the victim must be injured again for right relief. It is obvious that such right relief of “double damages” is not allowed in the modern society and it is nearly a sign of “presumption of guilt” to some extent. The current petition system does not set a relief cost for the petitioners except for some basic procedures. Common people can directly complain to the petition department if they feel anything wrong. Rebellious local governors may be restricted using this relief method initiated by the petitioners and even flaws in the final judgment made by the court can be corrected to minimize illegal infringement upon common people’s rights. In principle, we should be overjoyed and cheer for a great victory of civil rights in the modern society now, but it is proved by facts that it seems to be too early to rejoice.

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3

Accidental Petition Result In the course of legal modernization, petition system aims to provide the petitioners with the final relief after all normal relief measures cannot work, and petition relief procedure must be started with legal and just causes. Otherwise, petition may replace all right relief means and the loss will outweigh the gain. Thus, rational petition often occurs after relevant cases are closed or a major cause of petition occurs when a case is in progress. In other words, only the really wronged cases can go through the procedure for safeguarding right through petition. However, the reality is the opposite. According to the survey on petition cases relating to public security in City A, plenty of cases in progress and cases in progress without a major cause pour into the petition channel. From the point of petition appeal (according to object of appeal), “requesting the police to accelerate handling a case” accounts for the largest proportion, up to 30.27%. The petitioner does not care about the handling procedure but hope to exert pressure on the police through petition to increase the cost of negotiation. Among petition appeals (according to case handling process), the strongest appeal is “supervision over progress of case” and “distrust for law enforcement process”, which occur in the case handling process and account for up to 74.33%. Even some cases directly enter the petition channel before being reported and the superior department will exert heavy pressure on grassroots police through issuing an approval document. We can also analyze this problem according to revisit information. Generally, a petition case should be reinvestigated and retreated, and problems that can be solved will often be solved under supervision of the superior department, especially under the heavy pressure of petition. However, most of the problems that still cannot be solved through repeat petition are often unreasonable appeals according to survey. More than a half of petitions against the police belong to revisit, of which revisit of the same problem in the same department in a month accounts for 8.29%, and such frequent petition is apparently abnormal. The problem is that law enforcement of public security organ becomes increasingly standardized, so it is apparently unfair to attribute these anticipatory petitions to the police’s law enforcement mistake or lack of standardization, and it is not consistent with the fact. There is only one conclusion that petition has increasingly become a means for the petitioner to seek personal benefits whether through “blackmailing the

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police”, or “making the result of a case in favor of the petitioner himself” (which accounts for 80% according to conservative estimate), or “handing a case as quickly as possible beyond the normal procedure” (according to survey, almost all petitioners think so). These petitions conducted for personal benefits have a consequence objectively, namely the really wronged cases can hardly enter the petition channel and the way to safeguard rights through petition is blocked. The Way to Safeguard Rights through Petition Narrows The emergence of various irrational petitions is an unexpected result of the petition system. Some file a petition with cause at first, but they make a new request after the problem is solved; some give irrelevant causes of petition; some are importunate in the beginning and make up various causes of petition to seek illegitimate benefits. The petitioner does not comply with the petition procedure and files a petition to the superior government before local government handles it; some directly file leapfrog petition in the beginning, but “stones flying in the sky will eventually fall to the ground” and all problems will be returned to the basic-level government. The problems that cannot be solved (such as unreasonable demand) will not be solved eventually and the basic-level government has to adopt various measures to “bribe” the petitioner to solve the problems. However, the petitioner who is aware of the benefits of “bribery” will make more excessive demands. Once the pressure of petition needs to be relieved through benefit, a professional “profit-driven petition” emerges. Despite the cause, the basic appeal of profit-driven petition is to charge the local government through continuous petition. I have carried out research across the country in recent years and such kind of petitions occurred frequently. To some extent, profit-driven petition is becoming a general trend. Once when I chatted with an old policeman, he told me his deep feelings when interviewed in Beijing. “1/3 of petition cases are reasonable, 1/3 are importunate and 1/3 are made by unruly people”, he shook his head helplessly. I have a full understanding and here is an example for readers: Liu Xiaoqing’s son was an escaped convict, who was shot by the police during hunting. After that, Liu Xiaoqing started her petition lasting more than a decade. Soon, the local public security bureau requested the troublecausing police to compensate 50,000 Yuan to Liu Xiaoqing, which was a

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INTRODUCTION

5

stupendous sum in the early 1990s. Liu Xiaoqing accepted the money and guaranteed not to petition in writing. In 2000, she ran out of money and started to file a petition to the central government. The local public security bureau had no choice but compensated 300,000 Yuan to her in 2004, deposited money in the bank and allowed Liu Xiaoqing to withdraw 200 Yuan every month. After two months, Liu Xiaoqing refused to do so and requested for one-off payment. She even tore the clothes of a leader of the municipal party committee who received her. During 2008 Beijing Olympics, the local public security bureau decided to pay for Liu Xiaoqing’s travel. It was just because of the government’s indulgence that Liu Xiaoqing tasted the sweetness and became a specialized petitioner. She even petitioned on behalf of others.

There are a lot of such cases. From the perspective of historical development, it is a normal social phenomenon that unreasonable person always exists. However, they are often labeled as marginal men and excluded by the whole society. Nowadays, these unreasonable persons obviously become a protagonist of the society and sometimes they are wrongly advertised as “right defenders”. Just as the saying goes “bad money drives out good money”, irrational petition will certainly occupy the space of rational petition after they emerge in large numbers. Whereas irrational petitioner knows better to use government’s weaknesses and master skills to “step on but not over the line”, they consume a lot of time and energy of government while dealing with them, that time and energy could have been spent on helping rational petitioners. In order to improve the petition efficiency, the rational petitioner has to learn from the irrational petitioner and even turn to irrational petitioner. As a result, the way is almost blocked for petitioners who are really wronged and need right relief. Petition Rediscovery Someone asks me a question: Is petition for or against rule of law? In fact, leaders’ deliberately building an image of “justice” is a thought of rule of man, because it advocates problem-solving mechanisms other than legal channels, doesn’t it? Now that the current petition system has become a means to seek profits, why not abandon it directly? This problem is interesting. It reveals the embarrassing situation of Chinese traditional “justice” culture in the modern trend of rule of law, that abandoning “justice” culture is often opposed by common people

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while advocating “justice” culture seems to obstruct the progress of rule of law. What’s more interesting is that today’s “justice” culture seemingly has changed from having a keen insight into matters, distinguishing black from white and solving the difficulties for suffering people to a shield for officials to evade the responsibility and be worldly wise and play safe, and consequently the entire petition system cannot function well. Such degenerative “justice” culture is really an obstacle for China’s rule of law, since a great many unreasonable persons emerge under such culture, making petition opposite to “justice” culture and legal culture. The degenerative “justice” culture mainly denies all other normal relief measures and consequently becomes a direct and even the only relief measure. Once “justice” is not potential but routine, it degenerates. Nowadays, petition is the most typical embodiment of “justice” culture in China. It degenerates in the following aspects: (1) After normal relief measures are all adopted without solving the petitioner’s problem, whether the petitioner’s appeals are legal and reasonable, the power holder often supports or doesn’t deny them; (2) Before normal relief measures are adopted, a great many petitioners exert pressure through petition but the power holder doesn’t guide them; (3) Before normal relief measures are adopted, the petitioner seeks help directly through petition and consequently normal relief measures will be invalid; (4) All petition is reasonable and any appeals must be satisfied. I don’t object to petition system but the degenerative petition system and the petition system that blocks the way to safeguard rights. Frankly, modern rule of law is defective, since it pays too much attention to procedure and may eventually be divorced from the public’s fundamental needs for substantive justice. In this aspect, traditional “justice” culture has a certain mitigative effect because it stresses that common people can participate in the decision-making process of politics and law based on conscientiousness. In this sense, it is anti-proceduralism, but it pursues conscientious justice or substantial justice. Therefore, it is not necessary to wipe out “justice” culture for the development of Chinese rule of law and only the degenerative “justice” culture is a true obstacle of rule of law. The essence of true “justice” culture is that common people have another way of right relief, a kind of relief based on conscientious politics, in case of failure in seeking justice through normal procedure. Having understood this, we can rediscover petition and get it back.

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Petition and Petition Against the Police In China, petition, as a political system, has a very long history and it can even be traced back to the age of Yao, Shun and Yu (Li 2009). The long-time prosperity of petition is closely related to China’s cultural tradition and political system. In the long history of system evolution, the petition system bears the basic political beliefs of state governors and ordinary people. In a sense, petition has been deeply rooted in national life and social life and formed a kind of characteristic daily political culture. Roughly speaking, the petition system has the following three functions at least. First, state governors can obtain “extremely abundant information about social operation” from ordinary people through petition (Ocko 2004). Such information can not only show the basic effect of state governance but also build a political relation with individuals in the society. Meanwhile, such information has very significant reference value for the formulation of new policies. In the collective era when the mass line is carried forward, state leaders make good use of the information obtained from petition to guide the formulation of policies for better social adaptiveness of new policies (Jie 1996). Moreover, state governors can timely master public thought and social change trend through petition in order to effectively adjust state governance strategies and solidify the legality of regime. Then, the central government can exercise supervision and control over grassroots governors through petition. In China’s political system, general information can reach the superior department only after “screened” by the “isolation belt” of cadres in towns and villages, so grassroots cadres’ activities often cannot be effectively supervised by superiors. Surrounded by the isolation belt of the rural grassroots-level power, without plenty of petitions especially leapfrog petitions, the superior unit generally will not compulsorily get involved in grassroots governance (Zhang 2000). Thus, the petition system is an important measure for the central government and the superior government to supervise local bureaucrats and break localization of power. It is believed that petition is an essential weapon to overcome bureaucratism (Diao 1996). Finally, ordinary people can realize the final relief of right through petition after going through the judicial procedure. In China’s political system, justice has never been a way of right relief independent of politics and administration and it even continues today. Hence, when grassroots

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judicial relief cannot guarantee the parties involved to safeguard their rights due to various reasons, the petition system reserves the way to directly petition the superior department and even the central government for justice. “From the perspective of Beijing petitioners, Beijing petition has a more important relief function, which satisfies individual needs for justice and encourages Beijing petitioners to engage in petition activities through hardships. In this sense, Beijing petition is a traditionally special way for Chinese people to fulfill substantive justice” (He 2006). The petition system has three development stages since the founding of New China. The first stage is from June 7, 1951 when the Government Administration Council released A Decision on Handling Letters from the Masses and Meeting the Masses to January 1979, namely the “mass mobilization petition” stage. In this stage, petition was restricted by political movement. Once a political movement was started, letters and visits soared unmasking others’ problems. In the later period of a political movement and in a very long time after a political movement ended, letters and visits that reflected problems existing in the movement or request for implementing a policy started to increase. The second stage is from January 1979 to February 1982, namely the “rectification petition” stage. In this stage, petition was no longer in the border position but in the central position of national political life, and the number of petitioners and problems solved was unprecedented. The main purpose was to solve a great many problems left over by history and redress wrongful convictions. The third stage is “stability and unity petition” from February 1982 to today. As the state announced to have basically completed the task to bring order out of chaos in 1982, the primary task of the petition system changed to resolve disputes and realize relief (Zhang 2005). Obviously, the above three stages are divided based on China’s political changes and with the purpose of revealing political function and practical value of petition. In a sense, petition practice in the collective era extended ideological pursuits of the petition system since the traditional society to the greatest extent, and especially it drew important lessons about responding to public needs and petition governance principle. Since the reform and opening up, China’s petition practice has had a new situation and it is divided into three stages based on the utterance of safeguarding rights: “Opportunism resistance” before 1992 can be roughly summarized as “everyday resistance” of western scholar’s so-called “weapons of the weak”; “legal resistance” or “legal rebellion” during 1992 to 1998 was characterized in resisting the local rules of basic-level government

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using the central government’s policies; “organized resistance” or “legal resistance” since 1998 was aimed at declaring and establishing the political resistance for the abstract “lawful rights and interests” or “civic rights” of the peasant (Yu 2004). Nevertheless, such discussion didn’t accurately reveal changes in petition since the reform and opening up, especially the judgment that Chinese petition was regarded as “political resistance” was inconsistent with the reality. In reality, more and more irrational petitions enter the petition channel and the petition system is changing quickly instead of aiming at safeguarding rights. Therefore, a new explanation framework is needed for changes in petition in recent years. According to researchers, if peasants’ petition before the abolishment of agricultural tax can be roughly summarized as “right safeguarding petition”, petitions after that were more of “profit-driven petition” (Tian 2012), which is an extreme form of irrational petition and largely weakens positive functions of the petition system. I also found from the survey on Linxiang Police Station that the increasing irrationality of petition against the police is quickly eroding the effectiveness of police stations. In the current petition trend, the prevalence of law-related petitions has the greatest influence on modern legal construction. Law-related petition refers to the behaviors that the petitioner presents ideas to public security organs, procuratorial organs and people’s courts by letters and visits and request for solving legal problems. According to department, law-related petitions can be divided into three categories: (1) Petitions relating to public security organs, namely petitions against the police, which mainly involve handling of slight injury cases, cracking of criminal cases, handling of traffic accidents, 110 report receiving and disposal and law enforcement of the police; (2) Petitions relating to procuratorial organs, namely petitions against the procuratorate, which mainly involve fulfillment of supervision over public security organs and people’s courts, investigation and treatment of bribery, corruption and jobbery and prosecutorial acts; (3) Petitions relating to judicial organs, namely petitions against the court, which mainly involve objection to judgment, execution of legally effective judgments and judge behaviors (Wu 2008). In law-related petitions, petitions against the court obviously arouse more attention and sometimes they are referred to as law-related petitions (Wang 2001). Although law-related petitions have inherent similarities, there are very obvious internal differences. For this reason, the study of petitions against the police is of great significance for understanding

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the dilemma of public security and rule of law to further understand the dilemma of China’s rule of law more profoundly. In the past decade, the public security department continuously strengthened the requirements for law enforcement standardization and made more and more “requests” for the police. “Five Prohibitions”1 and “Administrative Compulsory Law”,2 as well as “Procedural Requirements for Public Security Organs in Handling Administrative Cases”3 and “New Criminal Litigation Law”,4 all show the police’s effort for selfdiscipline and legal construction. An important reason why the public security department stresses law enforcement standardization is to reduce petitions against the police that have prevailed since the end of the 1990s. The public security department considers nonstandard law enforcement as a cause of more and more petition cases. Thus, they have to discipline the

1 On January 22, 2003, the Ministry of Public Security formulated “five prohibitions” specific to “police of some local public security organs drink wine with gun, drive while intoxicated and cause troubles, and participate in gambling against regulations on management and use of gun. Particularly, police kill people using gun, drive while intoxicated and cause troubles and have other major serious cases and accidents recently, which severely infringe upon the masses’ lawful rights and interests, destroy an overall image of public security organs and cause extremely severe social political influence, in order to maintain the order and discipline of public security organs”. It can be said that China’s policing reform and law enforcement standardization started this year. Refer to the Ministry of Public Security: “A Notice of the Ministry of Public Security about Printing and Issuing Five Prohibitions” (GTZ [2003] No. 4), January 22, 2003. 2 Administrative Compulsory Law of the People’s Republic of China was passed at the 21st Meeting of the 11th Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on June 30,

2011 and has been implemented as of January 1, 2012. This law is of great significance for “setting and implementing the standardization of administrative compulsion, safeguarding and supervising administrative organs to fulfill their duties according to law, maintaining public benefit and social order, protecting lawful rights and interests of citizens, legal persons and other organizations”. 3 In order to standardize the procedures for the police to handle administrative cases, the Ministry of Public Security released Regulations on Procedures for Handling Administrative Cases of Public Security Organs on August 26, 2003, which aroused strong repercussions. Director-general of the Legislation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security Li Zhongxin announced a complete set of procedures and systems for handling administrative cases, criminal cases and administrative review cases, which stipulated the deadline for public security organs to detain properties, the legal channel to obtain evidence, the deadline for interrogating and testifying criminal suspects and specific requirements for collecting fines-Detailed procedures for law enforcement were stipulated. 4 Criminal Litigation Law revised in 2012 further strengthened the protection of human rights and the standardization of law enforcement of public security organs.

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power and standardize law enforcement to control the prevalence of petitions against the police and promote the construction of the socialist rule of law. Since 2003, the public security department has focused on solving the problems of petitions against the police and petitions have gradually become the focus of work of the police. Team leader of Linxiang Police Station Chen Weidong thinks petitions against the police have prevailed since 2005. Before that, “Petitions were nearly ignored”. However, the result was beyond all expectations. With law enforcement standardization, petition against the police was not relieved but gave rise to a climax, which is really thought-provoking.

Literature Review and Research Approach Presently, petition is studied mainly using two theoretical approaches, namely “right safeguarding approach” and “governance power approach”. For “right safeguarding approach” supporter, the petition trend is originated from improper expansion of governmental power and consequently private right is damaged and a kind of “resistance” is triggered (Yu 2004, 2005). This explanation is backed by many followers in the academic circle and even such influence has infiltrated into government decision and nearly formed a “mainstream” trend. Right safeguarding supporter often obtains theoretical resources from “neoliberalism”, which advocates that as long as individuals get full rights, they can cooperate spontaneously through market dealing or public choice, which is completely democratic and exclusive of oppression by any power (Giddens 2000). Guided by this theory, it is considered that the governmental power should be as less as possible and only used to ensure effective operation of the mechanism of social order through private freedom. In their point of view, it is obvious that China lacks a tripartite political system. As a result, governmental power can be easily out of bonds and infringe upon private rights, and the aggrieved has to stand out and resist. For “governance power approach” supporters, the explanation of right safeguarding petitions is divorced from practical social experience and is more ideological. In their mind, the petition trend is not originated from the extension of governmental power. Oppositely, weakening of governmental power results in the petition (Shen 2010). “Governance power approach” makes a judgment based on the structural dilemma of grassroots governance in the beginning and stresses the importance

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of grassroots governance for solving internal affairs of the society and maintaining social stability. Based on similar consciousness, “governance power approach” finds new evidence from the studies of “irrational petition” (Chen 2011), “land petition” (Gui and Tao 2011) and “water conservancy petition” (Jiao 2010) soon. “Governance power approach” supporters prefer to absorb theoretical resources from practice of socialism especially the collective age. Socialism, as a radical theory reforming the society, stresses that a good social order can be planned by a wise manager. State is not a token of evil but the center of kindness as long as it stands for the masses. Furthermore, excessive expansion of private right is considered immoral and bad for collective consciousness, so it should be denied. For “governance power approach” supporters, government system reform in recent years is the direct cause of weakening the grassroots governance power, which finally causes the difficulties in the supply of public goods such as farmland water conservancy and road construction, and petition rises due to government’s “absence of power” in these aspects (He 2011). Although “right safeguarding approach” and “governance power approach” have a certain explanatory power, these explanations are onesided. In fact, petition against the police increases steadily with the standardization of law enforcement of public security organs, which is opposite to the explanation of “right safeguarding approach”. According to the explanation of “right safeguarding approach”, petition against the police should keep decreasing as state power is disciplined, but the expected result is not achieved. In addition, petition deteriorates due to the loss of government management resources according to the explanation of “governance power approach”. For public security organs, governance resources conferred by law do not decrease obviously, especially in the process of irrational petition governance, public security organs still enjoy plenty of legal compulsory means. Therefore, “governance power approach” still cannot give a full explanation to the current petition trend. In a sense, the difference between “right safeguarding approach” and “governance power approach” is not as big as it looks, and they are only two sides of a problem which could be called “power proportion theory” essentially. “Power proportion theory” attributes the rise of the petition trend to the disproportionality between governmental power and private right and stresses that excessive governmental power is “right safeguarding approach” and excessive private power is “governance power

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approach”. “Power proportion theory” is just a superficial phenomenon and it makes an explanation not qualitatively but quantitatively, so “right safeguarding approach” or “governance power approach” is determined by scholar’s judgment of power proportion. You can hardly imagine that “power proportion” is not changeless in complex social practice and the reality is that “right safeguarding approach” and “governance power approach” often coexist and are interconvertible. I’m not trying to argue about the explanation pattern, though it is not meaningless. A worrying problem is whether we have a full understanding of the truthfulness of practical experience and its internal logic. Many theoretical arguments may not be a problem of explanation pattern but lie in the versatility and complexity of practical experience. Based on this, I will adopt an approach similar to legal anthropology and try to completely imitate the experience logic of petition against the police, so that relevant theoretical judgments do not deviate from the reality too much. Then, we need an explanatory approach beyond “power proportion theory” to analyze the generation mechanism of the current petition trend at a more essential level. According to my years of experience in grassroots research, especially half a year’s in-depth research on public security organs in H province, I consider that the prevalence of petitions against the police is rooted in the loss of power decision-making ability in the petition governance process instead of a simple problem of power disproportionality. The loss of power decision-making ability results in not only heterization of the petition system but also “involution of rule of law” in the process of law enforcement standardization.

Data Source This book is written based on long-term research on public security organs in H province (where the public security bureau of A City and Linxiang Police Station are the key research object) and data is obtained from the practical experience that I participated in personally and in-depth interviews with the police and the petitioner. With the legal anthropology approach, I should imitate petition cases as a whole and deeply explain the behavior logic and governance mechanism of petition. 205 petition cases of A City in January 2011 are taken as examples in this book. It should be pointed out that the petition against the police has prevailed in recent years. In A City, the urbanization process accelerated

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with a sharp increase in petitions against the police. Broad cement roads led to surrounding villages, large farmland was included in urban planning and peasant who wanted to become rich kept flowing between urban and rural areas. Urbanization is identified as an important symbol of modernization, which has stirred the peaceful benefit network, reshaped various economic and social relations and caused complex social contradictions while promoting the growth of local GDP. From this point of view, the petition against the police is more than an internal affair of the public security system, but deeply involves in the transformation process of the entire society, which is a basic background of the petition against the police.

References Chen Baifeng. 2011. Irrational Petition and Grassroots Rule of Law. Chinese and Foreign Law (2). Diao Jiecheng. 1996. Petition History, 48. Beijing: Beijing Economics College Press. Giddens. 2000. Surpass the Left and the Right: Future of Radical Politics, trans. Li Huibin and Yang Xuedong, 35. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press. Gui Hua, Tao Zixiang. 2011. Thorough Analysis of Peasant’s Land Petition Type and Mechanism—Investigation Based on a County in Eastern Henan. Journal of Nanjing Agricultural University (Social Science Edition) (2). He Hairen. 2006. Function Transformation and Destiny of Petition Relief. Journal of Law Application (6). He Xuefeng. 2011. Analysis of the Relationship between State and Peasants— With Peasants’ Petitions as the Source of Problem Consciousness. Tianjin Social Sciences (4). Jiao Changquan. 2010. Regime Suspension and Market Dilemma: An Explanatory Framework of Farmers’ Petition Behaviors--Based on the Analysis of Farmers’ Petition Behaviors of Farmland Water Conservancy in G Town, Central Hubei Province. Open Times (6). Jie Cheng. 1996. Petition History. Beijing: Beijing Economics College Press. Li Qiuxue. 2009. Discussion about Chinese Petition History. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press. Ocko Jonathan. 2004. Make Every Endeavor to Go to Beijing: Beijing Petition in the Qing Dynasty. In Discussion about Traditions of Chinese Law by American Scholars (Revised and Enlarged Edition), ed. Karen Turner et al., 513–514. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press. Shen Duanfeng. 2010. Rural Governance Power and Classified Governance: Transition of Paradigm of Studies on Peasant’s Petition. Open Time (6).

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Tian Xianhong. 2012. Grassroots Governance of China. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press. Wang Yaxin. 2001. Civil Actions in Social Changes, 2. Beijing: China Legal Publishing House. Wu Haiyuan. 2008. Constitutional Thinking on Law-Related Petition, 8. Master’s Thesis of Shandong University. Yu Jianrong. 2004. An Explanatory Framework of Current Farmers’ Right Defense Activities. Sociological Research (6). Yu Jianrong. 2005. Development and Growth of Contemporary Chinese Peasant’s Right Defense Organization—Empirical Research Based on Hengyang Peasant Association. China Rural Survey (2). Zhang Haihon. 2005. The Origin and Current Situation of New China’s Petition System. Unity (1). Zhang Jing. 2000. Grass-roots Political Power: Rural System Problems, 187–188. Hangzhou: Zhejiang People’s Publishing House.

CHAPTER 2

Overview of the Petition Against the Police: Data Analysis

In January 2011, 205 petition cases occurred in A City (repeat petition cases were included according to number of visit events). There were 177 municipal-level petitions, accounting for 86.34%, 17 provincial-level petitions, accounting for 8.29% and 11 petitions to the Ministry of Public Security, accounting for 5.37% (as shown in Table 2.1). It is evident that most petitions against the police were at the municipal level because the cost was low and all problems would be solved by the local government at last. Therefore, most petitioners preferred local petition. 177 of 205 petition cases in A City provided a definite place of residence, of which 120 were rural petition cases, accounting for 67.8% and 57 were urban petition cases, accounting for 32.2%. It is visible that rural petitions accounted for the largest proportion, which was related to a larger agricultural population of A City and was an inevitable phenomenon in the course of urbanization. The concrete logic is thoroughly analyzed below. The rural–urban differences in the quantity of petitions against the police show that rural area is the key and difficult point to maintain the stability of a transitional society. 177 of 205 petition cases in A City had a definite quantity of petitioners (as shown in Table 2.2), of 5 were group cases (5 persons or more), accounting for 2.82% and 172 were non-group cases (less 5 persons), accounting for 97.18%. It is visible that most petition cases

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 17 Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Huihuang, Petition Against the Police, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0_2

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Table 2.1 Level and quantity of petitions against the police

Men’s petitions Women’s petitions Total

Municipal-level petitions

Provincial-level petitions

Ministerial-level petitions

Total

103 74 177

10 7 17

4 7 11

117 88 205

Table 2.2 Number of petitioners Petitioner

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

9

Total

Quantity

124

38

9

1

2

1

1

1

177

were conducted in an individual way. There were 124 individual cases, accounting for 70.06%. 169 of 205 petition cases in A City had a definite time of event (as shown in Fig. 2.1). Two earliest cases occurred in 1990; 85 cases occurred in 2010, accounting for 50.3%. Figure 2.1 shows two major phenomena. More and more petition cases occurred with the passage of time. On the one hand, people’s awareness of right safeguarding increased increasingly and cases that didn’t need to be petitioned are petitioned now. On the other hand, some problems may have been solved and the parties involved abandoned petition. The number of cases has soared since 2008. One reason is that the urbanization process of A City accelerated from about 2008 and the urbanization process was prone to provoke numerous social contradictions (Huntington 1989). The other reason is that public security organs of A City also accelerated the rule of law process from about 2008 and some small defects of law enforcement of public security organs became “non-standard law enforcement” or “flaws of law enforcement”, which lowered the threshold of petition.

Appeals of Petitions Against the Police Overview Petitions always emerge with specific appeals, and investigating appeals of petitions against the police can measure the petitioner’s attitude toward the rule of law in public security organs. It is very effective to detect the

2

19

OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

2010

85

2009

21

2008

15

2007

9

2006

6

2005

2

2004

6

2003

4

2002

4

2001

5

2000

2

1999

0

1998

2

1997

0

1996

2

1995

1

1994

0

1993

1

1992

1

1991

1

1990

2 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Fig. 2.1 Time distribution of causal events of petitions against the police

progress of public security organ’s rule of law through petition, because petition cases can reveal the disadvantages in the law enforcement process of police to provide a direction for further improvement. Nevertheless, it is very dangerous to use this method only, since the petitioners’ appeals are prone to exaggerate the disadvantages in the law enforcement process and even misleading to some extent. A difficulty in public security organ’s rule of law is how to find out the generation mechanism of appeals of petitions against the police and distinguish the true from the false. There were 261 appeals in the 205 petition cases of A City (the petitioner raised several appeals in some cases and a minority of cases had no definite appeals) (as shown in Table 2.3). The strongest appeal was “request for accelerating case handling”, accounting for 30.27%. It indicated that the petitioner preferred to exerting pressure on the police through petition and such pressure was likely to bring a lot of unnecessary troubles to the police. Petitions against the police was mainly aimed at accelerating the progress of cases, which was consistent with my feeling of the interview with the police and the petitioner. The petitioner didn’t

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Table 2.3 Ranking of appeals of petitions against the police Rank Appeal

Quantity

Proportion (%)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 8 8 9 10 10 11

79 36 25 20 19 13 9 9 6 6 5 4 4 3

30.27 13.79 9.58 7.66 7.28 4.98 3.45 3.45 2.3 2.3 1.92 1.53 1.53 1.15

3 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1

1.15 1.15 1.15 1.15 0.77 0.77 0.77 0.38 0.38 0.38 0.38 0.38

261

100

11 11 11 11 12 12 12 13 13 13 13 13

Request for accelerating case handling Request for case filing Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Feel dissatisfied with the handling result Reflect nonfeasance of the police Reflect underworld organization Feel dissatisfied with being detained Claim for damages Request for identification Reflect the police’s extorting confessions by torture Request for re-identification Request for holding others accountable Reflect the police’s uncivilized law enforcement Feel dissatisfied with being re-educated through labor Request the police to apologize Reflect being beaten by the police Request for household registration Consulting Reflect abnormal death in prison Request for rehabilitation Raise an objection to being fired Request for returning properties involved in cases Request for compensating for losses in the petition Request the police substation to repay the debts Raise an objection to the policeman’s death Request for identifying the opposite side’s irrational petition Total

care about the handling procedure of cases but considered that their case could be valued only through petition. The second appeal was “request for case filing”, accounting for 13.79%. It reflected the police’s reluctance to accept cases, but many petitioners requested the police to handle cases beyond their responsibility range in practice. The third appeal was “reflect unfair law enforcement of the police”, accounting for 9.58%. It reflected people’s request for impartial law enforcement of the police. Certainly, many petitioners identify “partial law enforcement” since their requests

2

OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

21

were not met. It’s visible that the petitioner’s appeals showed the disadvantages of public security organ’s rule of law, but some appeals were also untrue. Appeals Classified by Object Appeals classified by object refer to classification of the appeals made by the petitioner for specific objects, including “appeals specific to a case”, “appeals specific to the police arising from a case”, “appeals specific to the police” and “other appeals” (as shown in Table 2.4). The strongest appeals were “appeals specific to case” and there were 162 appeals, accounting for 62.07%; there were 82 “appeals specific to the police”, accounting for 31.42%, of which most appeals were caused by relevant cases. “Appeals specific to a case” refer to that the petitioner makes appeals only specific to case filing, handling and identification of case and these requests are not directly specific to the police. There were 162 appeals of 8 types (as shown in Table 2.5). The strongest appeal was “request for accelerating case handling” and there were 79 appeals, followed by 36 appeals “request for case filing” and 32 appeals “feel dissatisfied with the handling result” (including “Feel dissatisfied with being detained” and “Feel dissatisfied with being re-educated through labor”). It’s visible that the strongest appeal was to handle cases quickly. “Appeals specific to the police arising from a case” refers to that the petitioner feels dissatisfied with the handling process of case and blames the police. There were 72 appeals of 10 classes (as shown in Table 2.6). The strongest appeal was “reflect unfair law enforcement of the police” and there were 25 appeals, followed by 19 appeals “reflect nonfeasance of the police” and 9 appeals “claim for damages”. For appeals specific to the police arising from a case, the petitioner valued the impartiality and Table 2.4 Appeals of petitions against the police in A City (classified by object) Appeals

Appeals specific to a case (A)

Appeals specific to the police arising from a case (B)

Appeals specific to the police (C)

Other appeals (D)

Total

Quantity

162

72

10

17

261

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Table 2.5 Appeals specific to a case (A) (classified by object)

Table 2.6 Appeals specific to the police arising from a case (B) (classified by object)

Appeal

Quantity

Request for case filing Request for accelerating case handling Request for identification Request for re-identification Request for holding others accountable Feel dissatisfied with the handling result Feel dissatisfied with being detained Feel dissatisfied with being re-educated through labor Total

36 79 6 5 4 20 9 3

Appeal

Quantity

Reflect nonfeasance of the police Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Reflect the police’s uncivilized law enforcement Reflect the police’s extorting confessions by torture Reflect abnormal death in prison Request for returning properties involved in cases Request for rehabilitation Request the police to apologize Claim for damages Request for compensating for losses in the petition Total

19 25 4 6

162

2 1 2 3 9 1 72

timeliness of law enforcement most. If these requests cannot be realized, they will even request the police to compensate for losses. “Appeals specific to the police” refer to that petitions occur not for specific cases but it directly relates to the relationship between the petitioner and the police or public security organ. There were 10 appeals of 5 classes (as shown in Table 2.7). There were a total of 17 “other appeals” of 3 classes (as shown in Table 2.8). The strongest appeal was “reflect underworld organization” and there were 13 appeals.

2

OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

23

Table 2.7 Appeals specific to the police (C) (classified by object) Appeal

Reflect being beaten by the police

Request the Raise an police station objection to to repay the being fired debts

Raise an objection to the policeman’s death

Request for household registration

Total

Quantity

3

1

1

3

10

2

Table 2.8 Other appeals (D) (classified by object) Appeal

Reflect underworld organization

Request for identifying the opposite side’s irrational petition

Consulting

Total

Quantity

13

1

3

17

The petitioner makes multiple appeals in some cases. The investigation of multiple appeals can measure the relations among different appeals, namely which appeals are prone to be combined and which appeals will cause other appeals. Among the cases of petitions against the police in A City, 48 cases had multiple appeals, including 40 cases with dual appeals and 8 cases with triple appeals. The cases with dual appeals can be divided into five different types (as shown in Table 2.9). The strongest appeal was AB type, namely “appeals specific to a case” + “appeals specific to the police arising from a case” and there were 30 cases. It indicated that the petitioner’s expectation to handling of the case was most closely connected to their expectation to the police and the petitioner made relevant requests while following the process of case. Among AB cases, there were 14 cases of “request for accelerating case handling” + “reflect nonfeasance of the police”, accounting for the largest proportion. It indicated that the petitioner preferred to consider the police’s nonfeasance as the primary cause of slow progress of the case. But in fact, many cases were hard to handle due to the difficulty in obtaining evidence, and the police had to handle too many cases beyond their ability. There were 8 cases with triple appeals, which can be divided into ABB and BBB types (as shown in Table 2.10). There were 5 ABB cases, which accounted for the highest proportion and had the same cause and significance as AB type.

24

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Table 2.9 Dual appeals of petitions against the police in A City (classified by object) Type

Content

Quantity

Sub-total

Total

AA

Feel dissatisfied with the handling result + Request for holding others accountable Request for accelerating case handling + Request for identification Request for accelerating case handling + Request for re-identification Feel dissatisfied with being detained + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Feel dissatisfied with being detained + Claim for damages Feel dissatisfied with being re-educated through labor + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Feel dissatisfied with being re-educated through labor + Claim for damages Feel dissatisfied with the handling result + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Request for accelerating case handling + Reflect nonfeasance of the police Request for accelerating case handling + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Request for case filing + Reflect nonfeasance of the police Request for case filing + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Request for re-identification + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Request for case filing + Reflect being beaten by the police Reflect underworld organization + Request for accelerating case handling Reflect underworld organization + Request for case filing Reflect underworld organization + Reflect nonfeasance of the police

1

4

40

AB

AC DA

DB

2 1 2

30

1 1

1 4 14 3 2 1 1 1

1

1

4

3 1

1

Appeals Classified by Process Appeals classified by process refer to appeals classified according to process of cases, which is mainly aimed at measuring the stage of a case that is most likely to cause petitions. According to process, appeals can be

2

25

OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

Table 2.10 Triple appeals of petitions against the police in A City (classified by object) Type

Content

Quantity

Sub-total

Total

ABB

Feel dissatisfied with being detained + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police + Claim for damages Feel dissatisfied with being detained + Request for rehabilitation + Claim for damages Feel dissatisfied with the handling result + Request for rehabilitation + Claim for damages Request for identification + Reflect the police’s uncivilized law enforcement + Claim for damages Request for case filing + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police + Request for compensating for losses in the petition Reflect the police’s extorting confessions by torture + Request the police to apologize + Claim for damages Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police + Request the police to apologize + Claim for damages

1

5

8

BBB

1

1

1

1

2

3

1

divided into five classes (as shown in Table 2.11). The strongest appeal was “Supervise the progress of a case” and there were 134 appeals, accounting for 51.34%; the second appeal was “Distrust the law enforcement process” and there were 60 appeals, accounting for 22.99%. These two types of petitions occurred before a case was closed, accounting for 74.33%. It indicated that most petitions against the police occurred in Table 2.11 Appeals of petitions against the police in A City (classified by process) Appeal

Supervise the progress of a case (a)

Distrust the law enforcement process (b)

Feel dissatisfied with the case result (c)

Request for rehabilitation (d)

Other appeals (e)

Total

Quantity

134

60

41

15

11

261

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L. HUIHUANG

the handling process of case and few petitions were caused by the appeal “feel dissatisfied with the handling result”. Many policemen complained that the petitioner always petitioned before the case was closed and consequently they were criticized by superiors for no reason. “Supervise the progress of a case” refers to that the petitioner hopes that the police accelerate handling of the case or the handling result could be in favor of the petitioner through exerting pressure on the police by petition. There were 134 appeals of 4 classes (as shown in Table 2.12). The strongest appeal was “request for accelerating case handling”, followed by “request for case filing”.

“Distrust the law enforcement process” refers to reflecting the problems of law enforcement to the superior department in the handling process of case to supervise the police to handle cases more impartially. There were 60 appeals of 7 classes (as shown in Table 2.13). The strongest appeal was “reflect unfair law enforcement of the police” and “reflect nonfeasance of the police”. Although some policemen were indeed partial or inactive in handling cases, most petitions were about the policemen’s Table 2.12 Supervise the progress of a case (a) (classified by process) Appeal

Request for case filing

Request for accelerating case handling

Request for identification

Reflect underworld organization

Total

Quantity

36

79

6

13

134

Table 2.13 Distrust the law enforcement process (b) (classified by process)

Appeal

Quantity

Reflect nonfeasance of the police Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Reflect the police’s uncivilized law enforcement Reflect the police’s extorting confessions by torture Reflect abnormal death in prison Request for returning properties involved in cases Reflect being beaten by the police Total

19 25 4 6 2 1 3 60

2

27

OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

bad attitude or their negotiation cost through petition according to survey. There were 41 appeals “feel dissatisfied with the case result” of 5 classes (as shown in Table 2.14). “Request for holding others accountable” refers to that the petition has no opinions about the handling result even though a case has been closed, but they think some people are not held accountable. However, the police often think that they have adopted treatment measures according to law and it is impossible to adopt treatment measures according to the petitioner’s will. “Request for rehabilitation” refers to that the petitioner requests the police to restore the losses caused by the police’s fault. There were 15 appeals of 4 classes (as shown in Table 2.15). The strongest appeal was “Claim for damages”. Sometimes compensating for losses not only refers to restore the original state in the petitioner’s mind, but also includes compensation for the cost that the petitioner pays to achieve this goal, such as “request for compensating for losses in the petition”.

There were a total of 11 “other appeals” of 6 classes (as shown in Table 2.16). An interesting appeal was “request for identifying the oppoTable 2.14 Feel dissatisfied with the case result (c) (classified by process) Appeal

Request for reidentification

Request for holding others accountable

Feel dissatisfied with the handling result

Feel dissatisfied with being detained

Feel dissatisfied with being re-educated through labor

Total

Quantity

5

4

20

9

3

41

Table 2.15 Request for rehabilitation (d) (classified by process) Appeal

Request for rehabilitation

Request the police to apologize

Claim for damages

Request for compensating for losses in the petition

Total

Quantity

2

3

9

1

15

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L. HUIHUANG

Table 2.16 Other appeals (e) (classified by process) Appeal

Quantity

Request the police station to repay the debts Raise an objection to being fired Raise an objection to the policeman’s death Request for household registration Request for identifying the opposite side’s irrational petition Consulting Total

1 2 1 3 1 3 11

site side’s irrational petition”. In this case, Huang entrusted Yang to run his truck and Yang failed to perform the contract. Huang reported to the police and the police detained this truck. Then, the county court disposed the truck according to law. As a result, Yang petitioned to the municipal public security bureau and requested the police station to return the truck, while Huang also petitioned the municipal public security bureau and requested to identify Yang’s irrational petition. It seemed as if petition has become a form of lawsuit. Multiple appeals classified by process are aimed at measuring which appeals may occur simultaneously in different handling stages of case, or which appeals in a stage may result in appeals in other stages. The 40 cases with dual appeals can be divided into 6 types (as shown in Table 2.17). The strongest appeal was ab type, namely “supervise the progress of the case” + “distrust the law enforcement process” and there were 22 cases. It indicated that the petitioner’s appeal of supervising the progress of a case was often caused by distrust for the law enforcement process. The foremost appeal of ab type was “request for accelerating case handling” + “reflect nonfeasance of the police” and there were 14 cases. In reality, distrust for the police often shows that the petitioner worries that police does not handle the problems as they expect, though such expectations are not reasonable in most cases. There are 8 cases with triple appeals, which can be divided into 4 classes, namely abd, bcd, bdd and cdd (as shown in Table 2.18).

2

OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

29

Table 2.17 Dual appeals of petitions against the police in A City (classified by process) Type

Content

Quantity

Sub-total

Total

aa

Request for accelerating case handling + Request for identification Reflect underworld organization + Request for accelerating case handling Reflect underworld organization + Request for case filing Request for accelerating case handling + Reflect nonfeasance of the police Request for accelerating case handling + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Request for case filing + Reflect nonfeasance of the police Request for case filing + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Request for case filing + Reflect being beaten by the police Reflect underworld organization + Reflect nonfeasance of the police Request for accelerating case handling + Request for re-identification Feel dissatisfied with being detained + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Feel dissatisfied with being re-educated through labor + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Feel dissatisfied with the handling result + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Request for re-identification + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Feel dissatisfied with the handling result + Request for holding others accountable Feel dissatisfied with being detained + Claim for damages Feel dissatisfied with being re-educated through labor + Claim for damages

2

6

40

ab

ac bc

cc cd

1 3 14

22

3 2 1 1 1 1

1

2

8

1

4 1 1

1

1

2

1

Causal Events of Petitions Against the Police Causal events of petitions against the police refer to the initial events causing petitions. Some petition cases are caused jointly by several events with coordinating relations or causal relations. The main purpose of

30

L. HUIHUANG

Table 2.18 Triple appeals of petitions against the police in A City (classified by process) Type

Content

Quantity

Sub-total

Total

abd

Request for identification + Reflect the police’s uncivilized law enforcement + Claim for damages Request for case filing + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police + Request for compensating for losses in the petition Feel dissatisfied with being detained + Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police + Claim for damages Reflect the police’s extorting confessions by torture + Request the police to apologize + Claim for damages Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police + Request the police to apologize + Claim for damages Feel dissatisfied with being detained + Request for rehabilitation + Claim for damages Feel dissatisfied with the handling result + Request for rehabilitation + Claim for damages

1

2

8

bcd

bdd

cdd

1

1

1

2

3

1

1

2

1

studying causal events is to measure the degree of dependence between petitions and specific events, namely which events can cause petition against the police easier. Thorough analysis of events prone to cause petition can help us better understand the internal logic of petition and plays a guiding role in public security work in order to better maintain social stability. There were 187 cases with a definite causal event among 205 cases of petition against the police (as shown in Table 2.19). The foremost causal event was “intentional injury”, accounting for 39.04%. Cases with intentional injury as the event were almost reflected in fighting. The reason why such events can cause petition easily because fighting was a common phenomenon and it was often hard to obtain accurate evidence. Especially when both parties were injured, either party may petition since they thought they suffered losses. The second causal event was “traffic accident”, accounting for 13.37%. The number of traffic accidents increased with urban expansion and vehicle increase in recent years. Besides, a

2

OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

31

Table 2.19 Ranking of causal events of petitions against the police in A City Rank

Event

Quantity

Proportion (%)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 9 9 10 11 11 11 11 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12

Intentional injury Traffic accident Murder Fraud Homestead dispute Property damage Demolition dispute Land dispute Land requisition dispute Misappropriation of collective assets Theft Missing person Child-rearing dispute Rape Robbery Intimidation Death Contract dispute Dispute over obligation Economic dispute Family dispute Neighborhood dispute Medical dispute Provocation Threatening Disturbing the order of the unit Dealing with official documents Concealing proceeds of crime Explosion Total

73 25 17 10 8 7 6 5 4 4 4 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 187

39.04 13.4 9.1 5.35 4.3 3.74 3.21 2.67 2.14 2.14 2.14 1.6 1.07 1.07 1.07 1.07 0.53 0.53 0.53 0.53 0.53 0.53 0.53 0.53 0.53 0.53 0.53 0.53 0.53 100

traffic accident will often cause severe consequences and the victim and their families were like to petition due to low compensation. The third causal event was “murder”, accounting for 9.09%. Murder occurred rarely in reality, but the bereaved often kept petitioning due to severity of consequence and difficulty in solving a case. Causal events of petitions against the police can be divided into 4 types, namely accidents, disputes, legal violations and crimes (as shown in Table 2.20). The foremost causal event was legal violation and there were 94

32

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Table 2.20 Causal events of petitions against the police in A City Type

Accidents

Disputes

Legal violations

Crimes

Total

Quantity

29

31

94

33

187

causes, accounting for 50.27%. It indicated that public security work plays an important part in the police station and plenty of petitions against the police may occur once security work weakens. There were 29 accidents of 3 classes (as shown in Table 2.21). The foremost causal event was “traffic accident”, followed by “missing person” and “death”. “Death”, as an accident, refers to death event for unknown reason or death event that families consider as a homicide case but cannot be identified by the police. “Murder” is definitely a death event that belongs to homicide case. There were a total of disputes of 11 classes (as shown in Table 2.22). The foremost causal event was land dispute (including “Land dispute”, “Land requisition dispute”, “Homestead dispute” and “Demolition dispute”) and there were 23 events. It should be noted that many dispute cases are not under the jurisdiction of public security organ, which gets involved only when they evolve to legal violations or crimes. Disputes in Table 2.22 are analyzed just because other legal violations occur. Disputes are regarded as causal events of petitions against the police because they are the knot of the matter and the petitioner requests the public security organ to solve these events beyond the jurisdiction of public security organ. In this sense, disputes, as causal events of petition, are the biggest difficulty for public security organ and they finally need to mobilize other government departments. Land dispute becomes the foremost dispute because land interest is the core of social contradictions in the process of urbanization especially in the process of land acquisition and demolition. In addition, land is the foundation for common Table 2.21 Causal events of petitions against the police in A City (accident) Type

Traffic accident

Death

Missing person

Total

Quantity

25

1

3

29

2

OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

Table 2.22 Causal events of petitions against the police in A City (disputes)

Table 2.23 Causal events of petitions against the police in A City (legal violations)

33

Type

Quantity

Land dispute Land requisition dispute Homestead dispute Demolition dispute Contract dispute Dispute over obligation Economic dispute Family dispute Child-rearing dispute Neighborhood dispute Medical dispute Total

5 4 8 6 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 31

Type

Quantity

Property damage Misappropriation of collective assets Provocation Intentional injury Theft Intimidation Threatening Disturbing the order of the unit Dealing with official documents Total

7 4 1 73 4 2 1 1 1 94

people especially peasants to live and work in peace and it will be cherished naturally. There were 94 legal violations of 9 classes (as shown in Table 2.23). The foremost causal event was “Intentional injury”, which was consistent with my survey on police station. The police were responsible for handling fighting in daily work and it was also the cause of petition. There were 33 crimes of 6 classes (as shown in Table 2.24). The foremost causal event was “murder”, followed by “fraud”. With urbanization, population mobility increases and the acquaintance society has turned to a semi-acquaintance society and even a stranger society. Thus, the current social trust network has been severely weakened to create conditions for

34

L. HUIHUANG

Table 2.24 Causal events of petitions against the police in A City (crimes) Type

Fraud

Murder

Rape

Concealing proceeds of crime

Robbery

Explosion

Total

Quantity

10

17

2

1

2

1

33

fraud. Fraud prevails also because “indirect contact” fraud occurs due to technological development, communication technology and network technology and such cases are often hard to crack due to tacitness and mobility, so petition can be caused easily. “Explosion” refers to a serious explosion case that occurred in A City a few years ago, in which many people were injured and their families hoped to urge the cracking of this case through petition.

Repeat Petition and First Petition Based on appeals and causal events, we can thoroughly study two major problems of petitions against the police. One is the comparative study of repeat petitions and first petitions, and the other is the study of rural– urban differences in petition against the police. The comparative study of repeat petitions and first petitions is intended to explore the internal logic of repeat petitions to master the current situation of petitions more accurately. To ensure accuracy, we call repeat petition for the same problem to the same department in a month as revisit (重复访), and call repeat petition (unlimited time) for the same problem to the same department as repeat petition (重访). As to range, repeat petitions include revisits. There were 17 revisits among 205 petitions against the police in A City, accounting for 8.29% (as shown in Table 2.25) and including 16 municipal-level revisits and 1 provincial-level revisit. A similar problem was the leapfrog petition (越级访), namely repeat petition for the same Table 2.25 Revisits among petitions against the police in A City Type

Total

Total revisits

Municipal-level revisits

Provincial-level revisits

Ministeriallevel revisits

Quantity

205

17

16

1

0

2

35

OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

Table 2.26 Leapfrog petition among petitions against the police in A City Type

Total

City to province

City to ministry

Province to ministry

City to province and ministry

Leapfrog petitions

Quantity

205

2

1

3

4

10

problem to departments at different levels in a month. There were 10 leapfrog petitions among petitions against the police in A City, accounting for 4.88% (as shown in Table 2.26). Repeat petition information was mainly obtained from municipallevel petition cases of A City, so municipal-level petitions will be mainly analyzed below. There were 101 repeat petition cases among 177 municipal-level petition cases, accounting for 57.06%. It indicated a high proportion of repeat petitions (as shown in Table 2.27). From the point of sex, men’s petitions accounted for a larger proportion, but there was only a little difference. There was only 1 group petition among repeat petition cases, accounting for 0.99% and 4 group petitions among first petition cases, accounting for 5.26% (as shown in Table 2.28). Group petitions can hardly cause a repeat petition despite their great influence, which is obviously directly related to the petition cost. In the survey, most policemen considered it easier to handle group petitions than individual petitions, which can cause repeat petitions easily. Among municipal-level petitions against the police, the number of repeat petitions and first petitions kept increasing with time (as shown in Fig. 2.2) and it has increased sharply since 2001. This was a very interesting phenomenon, because it aroused a question: Were cases handled more unfairly or nonstandardly after 2001 and consequently petition Table 2.27 Sex and quantity of repeat petitions and first petitions (by registrant)

Repeat petitions First petitions Total

Men’s petitions

Women’s petitions

Total

60 43 103

41 33 74

101 76 177

59.41% 56.58%

40.59% 43.42%

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L. HUIHUANG

Table 2.28 Number of petitioners of repeat petitions and first petitionsa

1 petitioner 2 petitioners 3 petitioners 4 petitioners 5 petitioners 6 petitioners 7 petitioners 9 petitioners Total

Repeat petition

First petition

Total

80 15 5 0 0 1 0 0 101

44 23 4 1 2 0 1 1 76

124 38 9 1 2 1 1 1 177

a Data hereunder was obtained from petition events incurred in

January 2011. People who petitioned in this month may petition before, so it belonged to repeat petition. That is, first petition occurred before January 2011

increased? According to survey, it was not the truth. There may be four major reasons: Firstly, social contradictions increased with urbanization and the number of cases thus incurred increased sharply. Secondly, A City started to set a 110 command center at the end of the 1990s and it was increasingly convenient for people to report a case to the public security system with the development of communication technology. Thirdly, increasingly strict requirements for law enforcement of public security organ result in an increasingly low threshold of petition. Fourthly, profitdriven petition increased and the petitioner sought personal interests through repeat petition (Tian 2012). Appeals of repeat petitions and first petitions are compared to indicate that a specific appeal may trigger a repeat petition easily if there are differences. Otherwise, it indicates that a petition tends to become a repeat petition without specific appeal. Classified by object, the difference between repeat petition and first petition is mainly reflected in “Appeal specific to the police”. The appeal of repeat petition is lower than first petition and it is roughly the same as other types of appeals (as shown in Table 2.29). It indicates that different appeals lead to a similar probability of repeat petition. Classified by process, the difference in the appeal between repeat petition and first petition is mainly reflected in “feel dissatisfied with the case result” and “other appeals”, of which the former is prone to trigger a repeat petition (6.8% higher) (as shown in Table 2.30).

2

35

2010 2009 2008

7

3

2007

6

3 4

1

2005

2

0

2004

47

12

8

2006

37

OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

2003

1 1 1

2002

1

2001

1

4

3 4

0 0 0 0

2000 1999

0 1 0 0

1998 1997 1996

0 0 0 0 0

1995 1994

2

0 1 0 1

1993 1992

0 1 1 1

1991 1990 0

5

10

15

20

25

Repeat PeƟƟon

30

35

40

45

50

First PeƟƟon

Fig. 2.2 Time distribution of repeat petition and first petition

Table 2.29 Comparison of appeals of repeat petition and first petition (classified by object)

Repeat petitions First petitions Total

Appeals specific to a case

Appeals specific to the police arising from a case

Appeals specific to the police

Other appeals Total

85 61 146

37 26 63

3 7 10

8 6 14

63.91% 61%

27.82% 26%

2.26% 7%

6.01% 6%

133 100 233

To reflect the difference in the appeal between repeat petitions and first petitions more accurately, all appeals can be compared (as shown in Table 2.31). First petitions with the appeals “Request for case filing” and

38

L. HUIHUANG

Table 2.30 Comparison of appeals of repeat petition and first petition (classified by process) Supervise the progress of a case Repeat 66 petition First 53 visit Total 119

Distrust the law enforcement process

Feel dissatisfied with the case result

Request for rehabilitation

Other appeals

Total

49.62% 29

21.8% 25

18.8% 9

6.77%

4

3.01% 133

53%

22%

12%

6%

7

7%

22 51

12 37

6 15

11

100 233

“Feel dissatisfied with the handling result” are easier to be converted into repeat petition and their percentage was 3.29% and 3.06% higher, respectively. On the whole, despite a little difference in the appeal, first petitions with the appeal “feel dissatisfied with the case result” is more likely to be converted into repeat petitions. Causal events of repeat petitions and first petitions are compared to explore the relevance between repeat petitions and a specific causal event. If there are obvious differences in the causal events between repeat petitions and first petitions, it indicates that this specific causal event is easier to trigger a repeat petition. There were 164 cases with definite causal events among municipal-level petition cases, including 93 repeat petition cases and 71 first petition cases (as shown in Table 2.32). The causal events was greatly different in “legal violations” and “crimes”, of which “crimes” can trigger a repeat petition easier (7.42% higher). To show the difference in the causal event between repeat petitions and first petitions more accurately, causal events can be compared (as shown in Table 2.33). “Murder” was a causal event that can trigger a repeat petition easiest (12.57% higher), which was consistent with the results in Table 2.32.

2

OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

39

Table 2.31 Ranking and comparison of appeals of repeat petitions and first petitions Appeal of repeat petition Rank

Appeal of first petition

Quantity

Appeal content

Rank

1

Proportion (%) 27.82

36

Proportion (%) 36

37

2 3

14.29 10.53

19 14

4

9.02

12

5

6.77

9

6

4.51

6

7 8

3.76 3.01

5 4

8

3.01

4

8

3.01

4

9

2.26

3

9

2.26

3

10

1.5

2

10

1.5

2

10

1.5

2

10 11

1.5 0.75

2 1

Request for accelerating case handling Request for case filing Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police Feel dissatisfied with the handling result Reflect nonfeasance of the police Reflect underworld organization Claim for damages Feel dissatisfied with being detained Request for identification Request for holding others accountable Request for re-identification Reflect the police’s uncivilized law enforcement Reflect the police’s extorting confessions by torture Feel dissatisfied with being re-educated through labor Request the police to apologize Consulting Reflect being beaten by the police

Quantity 1

11 9

11 9

2 3

6

6

4

9

9

3

4

4

5

4 3

4 3

5 6

2

2

7

0

0

9

2

2

7

1

1

8

0

0

9

1

1

8

1

1

8

1 2

1 2

8 7

(continued)

40

L. HUIHUANG

Table 2.31 (continued) Appeal of repeat petition 11

0.75

1

11

0.75

1

11

0.75

1

11

0.75

1

12

0

0

12

0

0

12

0

0

12

0

0

100

133

Appeal of first petition Request for household registration Request for rehabilitation Raise an objection to being fired Request for compensating for losses in the petition Request for returning properties involved in cases Request the police substation to repay the debts Raise an objection to the policeman’s death Request for identifying the opposite side’s irrational petition Total

2

2

7

1

1

8

1

1

8

0

0

9

1

1

8

1

1

8

1

1

8

1

1

8

100

100

Table 2.32 Comparison of causal events of repeat petitions and first petitions (classified by causal events)

Repeat petitions First petitions Total

Accidents

Disputes

16

17.2%

16

11

15.49%

12

27

28

Legal violations

Crimes

17.2%

41

44.09%

20

21.51%

93

16.9%

38

53.52%

10

14.09%

71

79

Total

30

164

Rural–Urban Differences in the Petition Against the Police Rural–urban differences in the petition against the police are investigated to explore the generation mechanism for petition in rural and urban areas,

2

OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

41

Table 2.33 Comparison of events of repeat petitions and first petitions Causal event of repeat petition Ranking

Causal event of first petition

Quantity

Event

Rank

1 2 3 4 4 5 5 5 6 6

Proportion (%) 33.33 15.05 13.98 4.3 4.3 3.23 3.23 3.23 2.15 2.15

29 10 1 1 0 7 4 3 4 2

Proportion (%) 40.85 14.08 1.408 1.408 0 9.86 5.63 4.23 5.63 2.82

31 14 13 4 4 3 3 3 2 2

6

2.15

2

6 6 7 7 7 7 7

2.15 2.15 1.075 1.075 1.075 1.075 1.075

2 2 1 1 1 1 1

7 7 7 8 8

1.075 1.075 1.075 0 0

1 1 1 0 0

8 8 8

0 0 0

0 0 0

8

0

0

8

0

0

100

93

Intentional injury Traffic accident Murder Land dispute Theft Fraud Property damage Demolition dispute Homestead dispute Land requisition dispute Misappropriation of collective assets Child-rearing dispute Rape Missing person Robbery Death Family dispute Neighborhood dispute Medical dispute Provocation Explosion Contract dispute Dispute over obligation Economic dispute Threatening Disturbing the order of the unit Dealing with official documents Concealing proceeds of crime Total

Quantity 1 2 7 7 8 3 4 5 4 6

2

2.82

6

0 0 1 1 0 0 0

0 0 1.408 1.408 0 0 0

8 8 7 7 8 8 8

0 0 0 1 1

0 0 0 1.408 1.408

8 8 8 7 7

0 1 1

0 1.408 1.408

8 7 7

1

1.408

7

1

1.408

7

71

100

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which provides an accurate understanding of the transformation of petitions in China. Whereas rural–urban differences in the petition against the police are mainly from municipal-level petitions, which will be analyzed below. Among 177 cases of municipal-level petition against the police, there were 120 rural cases, accounting for 67.8% and 57 urban cases, accounting for 32.2% (as shown in Table 2.34). Rural petition is the precondition for maintaining stability of the rural society and even the entire society of China. From the point of sex, there are no obvious rural–urban differences in the percentage of men’s petitions and women’s petitions. Among municipal-level petitions against the police, there were 4 rural group petitions, accounting for 3.33% and 1 urban group petition, accounting for 1.75% (as shown in Table 2.35). Group petition was prone to occur in rural areas, which was related to the difference in the rural–urban social structure. Rural area, especially rural area of A City, had a stronger family concept than urban area despite the impact of modernization, and it was easier to take collective actions. Among municipal petitions against the police, rural petition occurred as early as 1990 and urban petition occurred as early as 1991. Rural–urban differences expanded rapidly from 2009 (as shown in Fig. 2.3), which was consistent with the time of rapid urbanization of A City. Urbanization had profound influence on rural area especially the suburbs. It was a drastic adjustment of interest and may cause numerous social contradictions easily. For example, petitions arising from land requisition dispute increased, which will be further discussed below. The difference in the appeal of rural petition and urban petition is compared to explore the sensitivity of rural and urban areas to petition appeal, namely which appeal can trigger rural petition easier and which appeal can trigger urban petition easier. Classified by object, whether Table 2.34 Rural–urban differences in sex and quantity of petitions Men’s petition Rural Urban Total

70 33 103

58.33% 57.89%

Women’s petition

Total

50 24 74

120 57 177

41.67% 42.11%

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OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

Table 2.35 Rural–urban differences in the number of petitioners

1 petitioner 2 petitioners 3 petitioners 4 petitioners 5 petitioners 6 petitioners 7 petitioners 9 petitioners Total

2010

Rural

Urban

Total

84 26 5 1 2 1 1 0 120

40 12 4 0 2 0 0 1 57

124 38 9 1 2 1 1 1 177

51

31

2009

18

2

2008

4

2007

45

0

2004

4

1

2003

2

0

2002

6

23 2

2006 2005

43

3

1

23

2001 0 0 0 0

2000 1999

01 0 0

1998 1997

1 1

1996 0 0 0 0

1995 1994

01 01

1993 1992 1991

01

1990

0 0

2 10

20

30 Rural

40

50

60

Urban

Fig. 2.3 Rural–urban differences in time distribution of cases of petitions

rural petition or urban petition, “appeals specific to a case” is the foremost appeal of petition, but it is relatively easier to trigger rural petition (6.27% higher), which may indicate that rural petitioner values more on

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handling of case. However, “Appeal specific to the police” is relatively easier to trigger urban petition (5.85% higher), which may indicate that urban petition has higher requirements for law enforcement of the police (as shown in Table 2.36). Classified by process, whether rural petitions or urban petitions, “supervise the progress of the case” is the foremost appeal of petitions and it is relatively easier to trigger an urban petition (2.47% higher). The appeals “distrust the law enforcement process” and “feel dissatisfied with the case result” are easier to trigger a rural petition, 3.54% and 8.91% higher, respectively. It may indicate that rural petitioners are more distrustful for the impartiality of law enforcement of public security organs. The appeal “request for rehabilitation” is relatively easier to trigger an urban petition (2.75% higher), which may indicate that urban petitioners value integrity of their rights more (as shown in Table 2.37). To explore the rural–urban differences in the appeals of petitions more thoroughly, all appeals can be compared (as shown in Table 2.38). “Request for accelerating case handling”, “request for case filing” and “reflect unfair law enforcement of the police” are top three appeals that can trigger rural petitions easiest. “Request for accelerating case handling”, “reflect nonfeasance of the police” and “reflect unfair law enforcement of the police” are top three appeals that trigger urban petitions easiest. Relatively, “request for accelerating case handling” is easier to trigger urban petition (14.98% higher), which may indicate that urban petitioners values the efficiency of law enforcement more. “Request for case filing”, “reflect unfair law enforcement of the police” and “feel dissatisfied with the handling result” are easier to trigger rural petitions, 12.04%, 4.24% and 5.15% higher, respectively, which may indicate that rural petitioners values the impartiality of law enforcement more. Table 2.36 Rural–urban differences in the appeals of petitions (classified by object)

Rural Urban Total

Appeals specific to Appeals specific to Appeals specific a case the police arising to the police from a case

Other appeals

Total

104 42 146

10 4 14

161 72 233

64.6% 58.33%

43 20 63

26.71% 27.78%

4 6 10

2.48% 8.33%

6.21% 5.56%

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45

Table 2.37 Rural–urban differences in the appeals of petitions (classified by process) Supervise the progress of a case Rural 81 Urban 38 Total 119

Distrust the law enforcement process

50.31% 37 52.78% 14 51

Feel dissatisfied with the case result

22.98% 30 19.44% 7 37

Request for rehabilitation

18.63% 9 9.72% 6 15

5.59% 8.34%

Other appeals

4 7 11

Total

2.49% 161 9.72% 72 233

Causal events are compared to explore the sensitivity of rural petition and urban petition to different causal events, namely what kind of events is easier to trigger rural petition and urban petition. Among municipal-level petition cases, there were 164 cases with definite regional information, including 111 rural petitions and 53 urban petitions (as shown in Table 2.39). Whether rural petition or urban petition, “legal violation” is the foremost event and it is relatively easier to trigger urban petitions (4.09% higher). Besides, “crime” is relatively easier to trigger urban petitions (14.8% higher), which maybe mainly because of a large outflow population arising from urbanization and the increase in various accidents thus incurred. In order to explore rural–urban differences in the causal events of petitions more thoroughly, all causal event can be compared (as shown in Table 2.40). “Intentional injury”, “traffic accidents” and “murders” are top three causal events that can trigger rural petitions easiest, of which “intentional injury” and “murders” are traditional causal events and “traffic accident” is a product of urbanization. “Intentional injury”, “fraud” and “demolition disputes” are top three events that can trigger urban petitions easiest, of which “intentional injury” is a traditional causal event and “fraud” and “demolition disputes” are a product of urbanization. Relatively, “traffic accident” is easier to trigger rural petitions (16.05% higher), because more and more peasants buy a car as the rural economic gets better, but they have a weaker awareness of compliance of traffic rules compared with citizens and consequently it is easier to cause an accident and petition. “Intentional injury” is easier to trigger urban petitions (10.07% higher). On the one hand, fighting events increase with the development of urbanization. On the other hand, people do not prefer to report a case if a rural fighting event is not too serious. As

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Table 2.38 Rural–urban differences in ranking of appeals of petition Rural appeals

Urban appeals

Ranking Proportion Quantity Appeal content (%) 1 26.71 43 Request for accelerating case handling 2 16.8 27 Request for case filing 3 11.18 18 Reflect unfair law enforcement of the police 4 9.32 15 Feel dissatisfied with the handling result 5 7.45 12 Reflect nonfeasance of the police 6 4.35 7 Reflect underworld organization 7 3.11 5 Claim for damages 8 2.48 4 Feel dissatisfied with being detained 8 2.48 4 Request for identification 8 2.48 4 Request for holding others accountable 8 2.48 4 Request for re-identification 9 1.86 3 Reflect the police’s uncivilized law enforcement 9 1.86 3 Feel dissatisfied with being re-educated through labor 9 1.86 3 Consulting 9 1.86 3 Reflect being beaten by the police 10 1.24 2 Request for rehabilitation 11 0.62 1 Request the police to apologize

Quantity Proportion Ranking (%) 30 41.67 1

3

4.17

5

5

6.94

3

3

4.17

5

6

8.3

2

3

4.17

5

4 3

5.56 4.17

4 5

2

2.78

6

0

0

8

1

1.39

7

1

1.39

7

0

0

8

0 0

0 0

8 8

0

0

8

2

2.78

6

(continued)

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OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

47

Table 2.38 (continued) Rural appeals

Urban appeals

11

0.62

1

11

0.62

1

11

0.62

1

12

0

0

12

0

0

12

0

0

12

0

0

12

0

0

100

161

Request for household registration Request for compensating losses in the petition Request for returning properties involved in cases Request the police substation to repay the debts Raise an objection to being fired Raise an objection to policeman’s death Reflect the police’s extorting confessions by torture Request for identifying the opposite side’s irrational petition Total

2

2.78

6

0

0

8

0

0

8

1

1.39

7

2

2.78

6

1

1.39

7

2

2.78

6

1

1.39

7

72

100

Table 2.39 Rural–urban differences in event of petition

Rural Urban Total

Accidents

Disputes

25 2 27

19 9 28

22.52% 3.77%

17.12% 16.98%

Legal violations

Crimes

52 27 79

15 15 30

46.85% 50.94%

Total 13.51% 28.31%

111 53 164

a result, too many urban intentional injury cases seem to occur and it is easier to trigger a petition. Relatively, “fraud” and “demolition disputes” are easier to trigger urban petition, 7.72% and 8.53% higher, respectively, because they occur in urban area more universally than in rural area. Such events as “land disputes” and “homestead disputes” occur especially in rural area.

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Table 2.40 Rural–urban differences in ranking of causal events of petitions Rural events Ranking

Urban events Quantity

Event

Quantity

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 8

Proportion (%) 33.33 19.82 9.01 5.41 5.41 4.504 3.604 2.703 2.703

23 2 4 1 0 0 6 1 1

Proportion (%) 43.4 3.77 7.55 1.89 0 0 11.3 1.89 1.89

37 22 10 6 6 5 4 3 3

9

1.802

2

9

1.802

2

9 10 10 10 10 10

1.802 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9

2 1 1 1 1 1

10 10 10 10

0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9

1 1 1 1

11 11 11 11

0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0

11

0

0

11

0

0

100

111

Intentional injury Traffic accident Murder Property damage Homestead dispute Land dispute Fraud Theft Misappropriation of collective assets Child-rearing dispute Land requisition dispute Missing person Demolition dispute Robbery Death Family dispute Neighborhood dispute Medical dispute Provocation Threatening Dealing with official documents Rape Explosion Contract dispute Dispute over obligation Disturbing the order of the unit Concealing proceeds of crime Total

Ranking 1 5 4 6 7 7 2 6 6

0

0

7

2

3.77

5

0 5 1 0 0 0

0 9.43 1.89 0 0 0

7 3 6 7 7 7

0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0

7 7 7 7

2 1 1 1

3.77 1.89 1.89 1.89

5 6 6 6

1

1.89

6

1

1.89

6

53

100

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OVERVIEW OF THE PETITION AGAINST THE POLICE: DATA ANALYSIS

49

Table 2.41 Rural–urban differences in repeat petitions (revisits)

Rural Urban Total

Quantity

Repeat petition

Twice per month

Three times per month

120 57 177

74 27 101

11 2 13

1 0 1

Table 2.42 Rural–urban differences in leapfrog petitions

Rural Urban Total

Quantity

City to province

City to ministry

City to province and ministry

Leapfrog petitions

120 57 177

1 1 2

0 1 1

3 1 4

4 3 7

Among 120 municipal-level petition cases of rural petitioners, there were 74 repeat petition cases, accounting for 61.67%. Among 57 municipal-level petition cases of urban petitioners, there were 27 repeat petition cases, accounting for 47.37%. It can be seen that the rural petition is easier to further trigger a repeat petition (as shown in Table 2.41). Among 74 rural repeat petition cases, there were 11 revisit cases (repeat petition for the same problem in a month), accounting for 14.86%. Among 27 urban repeat petition cases, there were 2 revisit cases, accounting for 7.41%, which may indicate that the repeat petition against the police is easier to occur in rural area. Among 120 municipal-level petition cases of rural petitioners, there were 4 leapfrog petitions, accounting for 3.33%. Among 57 municipallevel petitions of urban petitioners, there were 3 leapfrog petitions, accounting for 5.26%. It indicates that the urban petition is more likely to trigger a leapfrog petition and it may be related to specific economic capability, traffic conditions and social relations of a city (as shown in Table 2.42).

Conclusion Through the above data analysis, we can make a judgment on some basic problems of petitions against the police in China, which will help

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restore the truth of the petition and lay a foundation for further studies. The research team that cooperates with me has carried out a survey on grassroots security offices and police stations in Zhoukou City of Henan Province, Dandong City of Liaoning Province, Xiamen City of Fujian Province and Jingmen City of Hubei Province, and drew conclusions consistent with the survey on A City. Obviously, relevant studies and basic conclusions on the petition against the police have universal significance. Urbanization Promotes the Rise of Petition Trend The rapid urbanization of A City started from about 2008, while the petition prevailed almost at the same time (as shown in Fig. 2.1). Urbanization is a process of reintegrating interests and triggers various social contradictions easily. Research shows a significant linear positive correlation between crime rate and the urbanization. That is, the crime rate will increase by 13.24% if the degree of urbanization increases by 1% (Hu 2006). An influence of urbanization on rural petition is embodied in a sharp rise of the petition from 2009 (as shown in Fig. 2.3), especially land-related petitions. Another influence of urbanization on rural petitions is embodied in “traffic accidents”. An increase in the number of rural vehicles and a sharp increase in traffic accidents thus incurred will result in the petition against the police. With further urbanization, problems of the city will incur more petitions mainly in “fraud” and “demolition disputes”. Fraud prevails due to defamiliarization and instability of urban social relations, which is often hard to crack by virtue of modern communication technology and network technology, and consequently petitions can be caused easily. Urban renewal involves demolition and reconstruction, and compensation issues will often trigger social contradictions and petitions. In a sense, plenty of petitions against the police are an inevitable phenomenon in the course of urbanization. Besides, the faster the course of urbanization, the more social contradictions and possibly the more petitions against the police. Individual Petition Is a More Serious Problem than Group Petition Generally, group petition can cause more serious consequences than individual petition, so the political leaders attach greater importance to group petition, especially in the petition assessment system. It is found from

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deep research that the problem of individual petition is more serious than that of group petition. From the point of quantity, group petition accounted for a lower proportion (only 2.82%) (as shown in Table 2.2) and individual petition (less than 5 persons) accounted for 97.18%. From the point of petition reception experience, group petition is easier to handle, because group petition costs high and is hard to exist persistently. Individual petition often exists in the form of guerrilla warfare and it is impossible for departments at different levels to defend effectively. Consequently, vexatious petitions (缠访闹访) will be triggered easily. Finally, group petition cannot trigger repeat petition easily and individual petition is prone to become repeat petition (as shown in Table 2.28), since group petition costs high and occurs only once. Public Security Case Is Easier to Trigger Petition Against the Police China’s police always focus on criminal investigation with murder and attaches little importance to basic security work. It is proved by facts that “legal violations” trigger more than a half of petitions against the police. Petitions arising by “legal violations” and “disputes” account for up to 66.84% and those arisen from “crimes” account for only 17.65% (as shown in Table 2.20). Public security cases are easy to trigger petitions because they account for a large proportion in society. Furthermore, public security cases often involve various social relations and it is hard to thoroughly solve these problems only according to law. Finally, evidence for public security cases is hard to collect but easy to expire and witness is reluctant to testify, so it is very difficult to handle these cases. The Petition Against the Police Is Easier to Trigger in Rural Areas Affected by modernization, the countryside no longer exists as a quiet rural society. Up to now, lots of scholars still imagine the rural area as a “peaceful world” with few disputes. They stress that softhearted acquaintance social relations in the rural area can constitute the major resources of self-governance, with no need for excessive state intervention. The political leaders put the emphasis of public security work on cities and pay little attention to rural areas. But facts prove that such imagination does not conform to social practice, and especially in the course of urbanization, the rural area obviously becomes a place full of trouble.

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Research shows that rural petitions account for 67.8%, far more than urban petitions (as shown in Table 2.34). Rural petitions are easier to trigger group petitions (as shown in Table 2.35) and further trigger repeat petitions and revisits (as shown in Table 2.41). There are mainly three reasons. First, the original rural social structure has collapsed or tends to collapse, and it has lost the function of maintaining social order through endogenous authority. Then, rural grassroots organizations are basically paralyzed or semi-paralyzed and have lost the governance resources. Third, the rise of urbanization has a great impact on rural interest relations and consequently more new social contradictions are caused. When these contradictions cannot be effectively resolved by public security organs or the petitioner feels dissatisfied with the handling process and results, the petition against the police is apt to occur. The Petition Against the Police Has Gradually Become a Means for Seeking Private Profits The petition system is intended to provide petitioners with the final relief after all normal relief measures are adopted. It should be at the end of all relief measures and need a legal and just cause of petition. Therefore, the petitioner can just choose to petition only after relevant cases are closed or a major cause of the petition is given in the handling process. That is, only the truly wronged cases can enter the petition channel. The truth is just the opposite. Plenty of cases in progress and cases without great causes pour into the petition channel. For example, among the appeals (classified by object), “request for accelerating case handling” accounts for the largest proportion (as shown in Table 2.3) and the petitioner does not care about the handling procedure but hopes to exert pressure on the police through petition to increase negotiation cost. Among the appeals (classified by process), “supervise the progress of the case” and “distrust the law enforcement process” account for up to 74.33% (as shown in Table 2.11) and both occur in the handling process. Some cases directly enter the petition channel before being accepted and the superior department directly issues an approval to the police for a solution, which imposes great pressure on the police. We can also analyze this problem according to repeat petition. Generally, a petition case should be reinvestigated before handled and the problems that can be solved often have been solved, especially in the prevalence of petitions. However, most problems that still cannot be

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solved through repeat petition are often irrational appeals according to research. More than a half of petitions against the police belongs to repeat petitions (as shown in Table 2.27) and revisits for the same problem to the same department in a month accounts for 8.29% (as shown in Table 2.25). Such frequent petitions are obviously abnormal. The problem is that law enforcement of public security organ becomes increasingly standardized, so it is apparently unfair and inconsistent with the fact to attribute these anticipatory petitions to the police’s law enforcement mistake or lack of standardization. There is only one conclusion that the petition has increasingly become a means for the petitioner to seek personal benefits whether through “blackmailing the police” (I have researched on more than 10 cases of this kind), or “making the result of a case in favor of oneself” (which accounts for 80% according to conservative estimate), or “handling a case as quickly as possible beyond the normal procedure (according to survey, almost all petitioners hope so). These petitions conducted for personal benefits have a consequence objectively that the really wronged cases can hardly enter the petition channel and the way to safeguard rights through petition is blocked. Standardization of Law Enforcement is not Bound to Result in the Decrease of Petition Against the Police Legal construction of the public security system is aimed at reducing petitions against the police through continuously strengthening standardization of law enforcement, but it has failed in the harsh reality. With the standardization of law enforcement, the petition against the police is not controlled effectively but increases sharply mainly for the following reasons. Firstly, social contradictions increase and public security organs have to handle more and more cases with the progress of urbanization, which lays a social foundation for the increase in petitions against the police. Thus, the increase of petitions against the police is a by-product of urbanization and it will not decrease substantially due to the standardization of law enforcement. The standardization of law enforcement means that law enforcement flaw that used to be a minor problem becomes a noticeable big problem, which greatly lowers the threshold of petitions against the police. In other words, law enforcement problems that should have not triggered a petition may become the cause of a petition now. Inspired by such fast

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“legalization”, people tend to deliberately find faults of law enforcement and raise objections through the petition anytime. For example, With the prevalence of evidentialism, all cases must be backed by adequate effective evidence, which is not realistic for many public security cases. Especially it is harder to obtain accurate evidence for fighting cases. It is interesting that people have increasingly higher requirements for evidence, but they are reluctant to testify. Excessive expansion of private rights is prone to cause the exaggeration of petition problems. Especially when private rights and private interests are mixed, the petitioner often seeks illegitimate benefits through safeguarding rights. Public security organs, as legal organs of violence, often act more toughly than other government sectors, which may easily become a problem that the petitioner cannot tolerate and for which petition may be triggered by the police’s “bad attitude”. Last but not the least, public security organs often depart principles while handling petition problems and “spend money for peace” to save trouble. As a result, petition governance has departed from standards and the petitioner may uphold the attitude that “all petitions are rational”, causing an increase in the number of petitions.

References Hu Lianhe. 2006. Transformation and Crime—Empirical Study of Criminal Problems in China’s Transformation Period, 33–34. Beijing: Press of Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC. Huntington. 1989. Political Order in the Changing Society, trans. Wang Guanhua and Liu Wei, et al., 34–35. Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company. Tian Xianhong. 2012. Grassroots Governance of China: Narration of Petition Game of Qiaozhen Town, 1995–2009. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press.

CHAPTER 3

Why the Police Are “Accused”?

The public security organ is a legal national organ of violence. If force resources in the hand of the police, as the executor of violence, are not effectively controlled, they may easily infringe upon people’s rights. Objectively, the police is an important power to maintain social order and it is necessary to endow it with adequate force resources. To prevent this need from being an excuse of power corruption, discipline of power is built at all times all over the world to limit law enforcement activities of national organs of violence. In case of inadequate power discipline, police power will be alienated and various misconducts will occur. Even though the police’s misconducts may be caused by other factors, the absence of discipline of power can validate these factors.

Police and Corruption It should be a common sense that corruption may occur once power is out of control. Of course, corruption still may occur even if there is adequate discipline of power. For one thing, people can attribute this to insufficient discipline of power. In this sense, corruption may be a power disease hard to eradicate, but it can be minimized through certain regulations. Since the end of the 1990s, Chinese police especially grassroots police have been blamed for various corruption problems, which was largely attributed to inadequate power supervision. In recent years, police © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 55 Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Huihuang, Petition Against the Police, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0_3

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corruption problems of A City have been uncovered continuously with intensification of police supervision and they have become a basic drive for local public security bureau to further intensify discipline of power. Here is a case below. During November 2010 to May 2011, the newly-built Linxiang Police Station made articles such as scrolls, boards and door plates at XX Co., Ltd., with a total of 21 orders and actual cost of 5801 Yuan. Liu Yimin, a financial worker of the General Affairs Office of Linxiang Police Station, privately asked Wang of XX Co., Ltd. to change the cost to 7201 Yuan in the settlement process, with a false claim of 1400 Yuan, which is pocketed by Liu Yimin himself.

In the viewpoint of the municipal public security bureau, the corruption of grassroots police is mainly caused by ineffective implementation of relevant supervision systems, especially cadres in charge of finance were irresponsible and consequently the police with selfish ideas and personal considerations had a chance to embezzle public funds. Although relevant responsible persons can defend themselves by not having got involved in corruption, they should still assume corresponding responsibilities for oversight. Sometimes cadres act evilly in collusion with the policeman to seek private gains through power, which will severely affect the image of the public security organ. Here is a case below. In March 2008, Li Rui was transferred to serve as deputy commander of the traffic police brigade of the county from the logistics instructor of the Public Security Bureau of XX County of A City and took charge of the traffic violation treatment office. When he just took office, Hu Qingping, member of the Party Committee of the Public Security Bureau and commander of the Traffic Police Brigade and Li Rui decided to exempt all penalties for traffic violations such as running a red light and overspeed taken by the electronic police system of XX County with the approval of Hu Qingping, and Li Rui had the power to halve the penalties. To be specific, Hu Qingping signed the approval and handed it over to Li Rui. Li Rui handed the approval of Hu Qingping and Li’s approval on halving the penalties to the policeman of the traffic violation treatment office.

Another noticeable phenomenon was that public security organs set a private coffer. Some public security organs levied fines and collected fees against the rule to generate “profits” and collected money by improper

3

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means to cover personal or collective expenses, which produced a very bad influence among the public. Here is a case below. Since Wei Qinfen served as director of Lishu Police Station in July 2008 until April 2011, Lishu Police Station illegally levied fines and collected fees for household registration, fees for household register certificate, “earnest money” for incomplete documents for household registration of newborns, motorcycle management fees and fees for reissuance of ID card and sponsorship fees from Family Planning Office, ultra-limit station, forestry station and other units within its jurisdiction, with a total of 309,000 Yuan. Since July 2008, Lishu Police Station has deposited illegal income in the bank in the name of Wang Xiaofu, a financial worker, which can be disbursed with the approval of Wei Qinfen.

In addition to the above problems, local public security department also handled cases for personal emotion, collected fees illegally and engaged in profit-earning activities against the rule, which aroused dissatisfaction and complaints of the parties involved and the masses, seriously damaged the image of public security department as a people’s right defender. Such corrupt behaviors have been banned by law very early, but there was a huge space for the police’s misfeasance due to ineffective policing supervision. Although a serious shortage of office expenses of grassroots public security organ objectively motivates the police to generate profits through misuse of authority, these objective factors cannot be a justified excuse for their corruption of power.

“Five Prohibitions” and Others “Five prohibitions” that have been implemented as of 2003 show public security organ’s determination to strictly discipline the police and mainly focus on controlling drinking and the use of guns. “Five prohibitions” are not laws or regulations in nature but internal disciplines and they are formulated specifically for the law enforcement links most prone to risk. It is believed that “five prohibitions” elevate the disciplines of the police’s law enforcement to an extremely high position and the police are shocked at the vigorous and resolute punishment intensity. Nevertheless, power supervision is still very difficult as disciplines are involved in daily life. Especially at grassroots level, the police often take a chance on the gap of the power discipline network. Here is a case below.

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At noon in October, 2011, He shou, the political commissar of the branch of the Supervision Department of the Public Security Bureau of A City travelled to Liushu Town together with his wife and daughter. During lunch, 6 persons, including deputy director of the Public Security Bureau of Liushu County Chen Chuge and director of Liushu Police Station Chen Chuntian drank 3 bottles of liquor. After lunch, Chen Chuge drove a private car and Chen Chuntian drove a police car to accompany He Shou et al. and then they returned to Liushu County. On the way back to Liushu County, Chen Chuntian suddenly drove onto the sidewalk, ran into the crowd and ran down a street lamp post. As a result, 4 people died, another died after the rescue failed and the other 3 were injured. There were hundreds of onlookers and some overturned two hearses and two accident investigation vehicles.

This accident had a great negative impact on the Public Security Bureau of A City, for which a new upsurge was created to learn “five prohibitions”. But soon after that, another director of a police station drank wine in working time, which was caught by the Supervision Department of the Provincial Public Security Department on the spot. Here is a case below. It’s February, 2012, the supervisor of the provincial Public Security Department found Sui Tang, the director of Huaishu Police Stance of the Public Security Bureau of XX County, was off duty. He called Sui Tang and the latter said he was reporting works to the county-level Public Security Bureau. Soon, the supervisor saw Sui in the courtyard of the county-level Public Security Bureau and found that he flushed red all over and smelt alcohol on his breath. Upon inquiry, Sui Tang admitted that he had drank liquor at noon that day.

After that, the director of the Public Security Bureau of A City was furious and immediately gave written instructions as follows: The Committee for Discipline Inspection of the Municipal Public Security Bureau should order the Party Committee and director of the Public Security Bureau of XX Count to write a self-criticism to the Party Committee of the Municipal Public Security Bureau and make an open self-criticism in the municipal conference. Besides, the Committee for Discipline Inspection of the Municipal Public Security Bureau should immediately organize a special investigation team to investigate Sui Tang’s flagrant violations of discipline. Meanwhile, the responsible person, secretary of the Committee

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for Discipline Inspection of the county-level Public Security Bureau, leader of the Supervision Department and leader in charge should be held accountable! The special investigation team will not withdraw before the above personnel are held accountable and draw lessons profoundly, and will not withdraw if the police who violate the disciplines and relevant responsible leaders still uphold a bad attitude! In future, people whom damage the image and reputation of the Municipal Public Security Bureau, despite their status, contribution and qualification, should be punished severely without mercy!

As requested by the director, the special investigation team carried out in-depth investigation. After two days, people involved in the case received harsh punishments. As to Sui Tang’s violation of the “five prohibitions”, the Public Security Bureau of XX County decided to confine him for 7 days and removed him from office. The Public Security Bureau of XX County studied and reported to the Supervision Bureau of the Committee for Discipline Inspection of the country and the Organization Department of the county Party committee for recording a serious demerit and giving a serious warning in the Party to Sui Tang, dismissing the head of the Policing Supervision Team of the Public Security Bureau of XX County from office, giving an administrative warning to the deputy director general who in charge of Huaishu Police Substation, ordering the director general of the county-level Public Security Bureau to make a self-criticism to the Party Committee of the Municipal Public Security Bureau.

There were at least another two disclosed cases of violations against five prohibitions. Except behaviors stricken by five prohibitions, grassroots public security organs often practiced fraud and deceived superiors and subordinates, which were deemed as a major factor of failure in police order and were severely denied. Here is a case below. When the Supervision Division of the Municipal Public Security Bureau made statistics of achievements monthly, the handler He Dong simply inquired the supervision office of different counties by telephone about the number of cases and pursuit evasions that were solved, without requiring them to report relevant proof materials. They neither published nor verified the number of cases and pursuit evasions and used them for assessment and ranking. As a result, performance appraisal of the Supervision Division was totally useless and the police are perfunctory in their work.

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The police practice fraud and deceive superiors and subordinates because they are not responsible in work or they are disturbed by their or others’ interests. In general, these behaviors weaken superiors’ supervision over subordinates, obstruct the implementation of police orders and make power discipline mechanism useless. Essentially, it reflects the loss of police’s faith and distortion of law enforcement, which eventually damages the interests of the public.

Law Enforcement Flaw Relative to corruption and discipline violations, the law enforcement flaw is a minor fault. Besides, law enforcement flaw is often caused by many factors and sometimes it is out of the police’s control. Nevertheless, objective factor is often intensified by subjective intent or gross negligence and plenty of law enforcement flaws can be eliminated actually. Therefore, it is hard to find too many excuses for the police’s law enforcement flaws due to technical level, expenditure and time. Of source, other problems will also be caused by excessive pursuit of a perfect law enforcement process, which will be further discussed later. Here is a case below. At 10:00 on December 4, 2011, Chen X reported a case to Linxiang Police Station that a recharge amount of 82,000 Yuan of his mobile phone registered online was stolen. In the evening of December 2, 2011, Zhang Qi, the user of mobile number 159XXXX0416, used 350 Yuan of his ID. Website registered online by Zhang Qi, information of phone bill published in QQzone and QQ number also showed the information that his recharge amount was stolen and Zhang Qi was a major suspect. The policeman on duty of the Case Investigation Team of Linxiang Police Station Su Xiaolong and Cheng Hua inquired Chen X and Chen XX who came together with him and accepted the bill of particulars of the stolen account provided by the reporter. With the approval of the acting director of Linxiang Police Station, a case of theft was registered immediately and investigated. The problem was that the police didn’t carry out preliminary investigation and registered the case on the condition that the aforesaid bill of particulars was not affixed with seal and thus it cannot be used as evidence.

It was a procedural detail problem. Though not serious, it could be avoided. The policemen had another “evidence of a crime” due to carelessness. In fact, if it was not exposed by media or a petition event didn’t occur, these detail problems would never arouse attention. For lack

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of routine power discipline mechanism, grassroots police often upheld an indifferent attitude toward these detail problems under great work pressure. On December 4, 2011, Chen X reported that Zhang Qi was suspected. The police who handled the case found that Zhang Qi may work in X Company on December 8 and the handling unit didn’t carry out investigation. Zhang Qi was still working in X Company when arrested by the police of Shandong Province on December 16, 2011. On December 26, 2011, the handler of Linxiang Police Station didn’t check the situation immediately after knowing that Zhang Qi had been arrested and didn’t question him until March 5, 2012.

Objectively, grassroots police have to handle a lot of cases beyond their ability. Thus, they prefer to handle the cases that arouse superior’s attention or may trigger petition first. The police often focus on the clues that they consider important and abandon others for limited energy. With regard to this, there are indeed objective reasons for law enforcement flaw. However, I also noted that the police were often reluctant to carry out comprehensive and thorough investigation even though they have enough time. Instead, they took changes that the parties involved would not petition for their demotivation. Therefore, there are reasons to believe that stronger monitoring can force the police to work harder. Weak ability of evidence collection has been an annoying problem for grassroots police and even the most responsible policemen will soon feel helpless to seek an accurate chain of evidence between the suspect and illegal and criminal consequences. On the one hand, many evidences are hard to retain or acquire. For example, grassroots police station appears powerless to deal with cyber-crimes. On the other hand, physical evidence, if any, is hard to use because the identification cost is too high, so solving a crime largely relies on the testimony system. On the condition that the parties involved are reluctant to tell the truth and other insiders are reluctant to testify, the policeman who handle the case can hardly collect effective evidence. As a result, the police will be demotivated and reluctant to spend more energy on exploring the truth of a case. The discipline of power, which aims at supervising the police to work more responsibly and reveal the truth as far as possible, cannot thoroughly overcome the difficulty in obtaining evidence.

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When reporting a case, the victim Chen X declared Zhang Qi as a major suspect and provided 10 suspected phone numbers. On December 5, 2011, Linxiang Police Station adopted criminal detention measures against Cao XX before verifying other suspected numbers and whether Cao XX had the conditions when the crime was committed. Particularly, the handler of Linxiang Police Station didn’t timely release criminal detention measures against Cao XX but adopted bail pending trial after knowing that suspect Zhang Qi was arrested in Shandong Province and committed the crime alone.

As a matter of fact, coercive measures such as release on bail pending trial are often adopted excessively. In this case, the police didn’t investigate immediately after knowing the information, which resulted in a guarantor pending trial on Cao XX. Despite various excuses, the police didn’t give top priority to public interest and make every endeavor to solve the case when conditions permitted. It was just such an irresponsible attitude that damaged interests of innocent people and the image of public security organ. On December 5, 2011, leader of Linxiang Police Station approved the summons to Cao XX without signing the opinions of the handling unit. Besides, the handler called Cao XX from B City to A City against the law. The detention report on Cao XX was verified and approved before filled out by leader of the legal review department and the handling unit. Leader of Linxiang Police Station signed and approved the search warrant on Cao XX before the handling unit signed the opinions.

Examination and approval of leader is not only a power but also a responsibility. It means that the leader is obliged to examine the documents to be approved and supervise the policeman who handle a case. Approving relevant documents with signature without a full understanding of the situation may be easily regarded as ineffective supervision and corresponding responsibilities should be assumed. Even though it is hard for a leader to fully understand every case in front of numerous documents to be approved, the power discipline system is exactly to supervises the supervisor to better fulfill the duties in order to reduce the risk in abuse of power. The handling result of this case was not filled out in the Criminal Case Registration Form. The detention report on Cao XX was prepared by

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the handler on December 8, 2011 and verified by the handling unit and approved by the leader on December 6, 2011. The investigators didn’t sign the interrogation records on Chen X, Chen XX, Cao XX and Zhang Qi. The witness didn’t make a fingerprint on the search record kept on December 20, 2011, detained articles and documents list. The procedures for releasing a guarantor pending trial on the suspect Cao XX were handled until March 8, 2012, but the closing date on the cover of the file was February 25, 2012.

The police often uphold an indifferent attitude toward the responsibility for “non-standard preparation of legal documents and interrogation records”. In fact, many documents and interrogation records are not prepared in the investigation process according to the procedure but prepared together at the end of a case. The police cope with superior’s inspection by “doing homework” and consequently time, signature and fingerprint in the files may be confused. If not taken seriously, these flaws will not have a substantial impact on case, while the truthfulness of these documents and interrogation records with procedural flaws may be questioned once problems are identified.

The First Form of Misconduct As to utterance of public security organs, “misconduct” is used to describe the abuse of police power under ineffective supervision, namely “do what should not be done”. The abuse of police power is a typical manifestation of distortion of law enforcement and it damages the public rights. Discipline of power appears to be particularly important for building a law-based society, which can be analyzed in three aspects. First, the legality of power should be recognized, otherwise, there is no discipline of power. Roughly speaking, power can be deemed as a collective authorization and the authorized person should complete the tasks that cannot be completed by individual, such as national defense and security. Thus, such collective power has decision ability and coercive capacity to crack down on a few wrong doers. Then, power has an expansion trend naturally, especially after power and a specific individual are combined, power is partly subjective and continuously gets rid of the authorizer’s constraints while pursuing expansion. Finally, it is necessary to build a fence of power

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and discipline power. Power discipline is not intended to deny the existence of power but to ensure more effective and safer operation of power and avoid damage to the authorizer. Among all powers, police power is taken as the most deterrent force, since it is around us. “The police are like a boxer and police power is the knife handle that cannot be used easily”, “the exercise of police power must be controlled and control of police power is a major proposition for a legal state” (Chen 2008). If police power is out of control and the legality of its existence will even be dangerous (Zhang and Zhao 2006). Nevertheless, the current supervision system appears ineffective in controlling police power. In fact, the public security system has a lot of supervision forces such as discipline inspection department, supervisory department, legal department, petition department and audit department. It seems to form a “rigid” supervision network superficially, but it actually results in that “everybody’s business is nobody’s business” and all departments cannot cooperate for effective supervision (Zhang 2011). The discipline inspection department set by the Party committee in the public security organs just investigates disciplinary offense of police officers and gives Party disciplinary punishments. The supervisory department set by government’s supervisory department in the public security organ just investigates violations of political regulations of public security organs and police officers and gives administrative disciplinary punishments. The legal department set in the public security organ just supervises and inspects law enforcement activities of operating departments and the police, and inspect and correct law application problems such as qualitative faults and procedural violations (Zhang 1997). The petition department focuses on petitions and complaints and the audit department focuses on illegal properties. Generally, formal power supervision organizations include discipline inspection department of the Party committee, supervisory department of the government and legal department in the public security organs.1 The 1 Supervision of these departments can be taken as an internal supervision mode, but supervision of petition and procuratorial organs belongs to external supervision mode. Supervision of procuratorial organs over law enforcement activities of the police stresses the supervision of the police over criminal law enforcement activities and criminal responsibility for violating criminal law in the law enforcement activity, while the supervision of administrative supervisory organs over law enforcement of the police stresses the supervision over administrative law enforcement of the police, the supervision over compliance with political rules and the administrative responsibility for prohibited behavior such as

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legal department is essentially a legal adviser of public security organ and it functions on guarding a pass on law application of case. The discipline inspection department and the supervisory department often cooperate in each other’s obligation and power, which reduces the power of supervision essentially. Besides, although Constitution of the Communist Party of China and Administrative Supervision Regulations endow the discipline inspection department and the supervisory department with direct power of disposition, “cadres belong to local government” are affected by local management. Party and administrative disciplinary rules should be approved by local Party, and disposition of government is hard to execute for the discipline inspection department and the supervisory department of the public security organ and their superior and subordinate. As a matter of fact, the discipline inspection department and the supervisory department can just give suggestions for treatment, which indicates that the entire power of supervision over law enforcement is completely attached to administrative power and administrative chief of public security organs at the same level. This situation can hardly absolve from “being suspected as both an athlete and a judge”. It is just because of such internal limitations that new policing supervision systems gain great expectations to realize relatively independent routinized control system and break the dilemma of “cadres belong to local government” and “post supervision”. In this chapter, we have learned that the supervision department is strict with power discipline and relevant policing supervision systems will be thoroughly analyzed in the next chapter. It must be pointed out that although policing supervision system has been built in 1997, it came into play very lately in practice. “Law cannot work alone”, but when it is vigorously promoted by leader in charge. According to survey on Linxiang Police Station, policing supervision has been strictly implemented since 2004 and supervision system became a monopolistic power only after policing reform in 2010. In this sense, even though standardization of law enforcement advocated by policing supervision attained long-term development in the past years, it hasn’t become a conscious choice for the police. Therefore, the police’s misconduct still can be seen during power discipline nowadays.

violation of law, violation of discipline and violation of regulation that do not constitute a crime in the law enforcement activity (Zhang 1997).

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In this study, the abuse of power arising from ineffective power discipline is called “the first form of misconduct”, which is put forward not to create something new and original but to distinguish from “the second from of misconduct” mentioned in the later section, namely the abuse of power arising from excessive power discipline. It can be considered that almost all phenomena of the abuse of power belong to “the first form of misconduct”, while exiting studies of power discipline are conducted based on this. The earliest petition behaviors are mostly related to “the first form of misconduct” and are a response of the petitioner to the police’s abuse of power. To really understand “the first form of misconduct”, we must focus on the following. Firstly, such form of abuse of power is caused by ineffective power discipline and is an embodiment of power expansion. Then, the governance of “the first form of misconduct” is not to cancel the legality and autonomy of power but to restore the property of power being “from the people and for the people”. Lastly, the truth is not that the more power discipline the more “kindness”. With upgrade and intensification of power discipline, “the first form of misconduct” may translate into “the second form of misconduct”, a more terrible form of abuse of power.

References Chen Tongkui 2008. Wear “Boxing Set” for Police Power. Southern Window (17). Zhang Hong, Zhao Qian 2006. Rational Analysis of Expansion of Police Power. Contemporary Law (6). Zhang Shengzu 1997. Guidelines for Application of Regulations on Supervision of Public Security Organs, 14. Beijing: Publishing House, People’s Public Security University of China. Zhang Shuping 2011. Comparison and Thinking of Standardization of Law Enforcement of the Police in Hong Kong and Chinese Mainland. Fujian Police College Journal (2).

CHAPTER 4

Policing Supervision and Panopticism

In order to reduce petition against the police, police power must be strictly disciplined, which is a basic concept of current policing reform. In view of disadvantages of the current policing supervision system, a new power discipline technology is invented, namely policing supervision system. Since the State Council released Regulations on Supervision of Public Security Organs in 1997, the police power supervision system has been built continuously. As to policing supervision practice in different places, the public security department of H Province where A City is located aroused the attention of the Ministry of Public Security and the public for outstanding performance. From “supervision storm” in 2004 to routinization of policing supervision nowadays, public security organ has improved police power supervision technology and developed a “panoramic” power supervision network.

“Supervision Storm” In a very long time, the public security department of H Province received much criticism due to such problems as ineffective police order and frequently occurring murder cases unsolved. In 2004, the municipal Party secretary of J City Lin Feng was transferred to serve as vice-governor of H Province and head of the provincial public security department at this critical and difficult moment. In March, the public security department © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 67 Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Huihuang, Petition Against the Police, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0_4

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of H Province built a 30-person supervision committee with 9 teams to carry out supervision over ineffective implementation of work and ineffective police order in different cities of the province. They offered strong support to the supervision committee in human and financial resources and identified “six don’ts” discipline such as don’t give a notice and don’t receive entertainment. In the subsequent gang crackdown action named “Spring Thunder”, director-general, political commissar and deputy director-general in charge of Xiaogang branch of the public security bureau of H City were removed from office due to sluggishness and ineffective implementation. At the end of 2004, the supervisors found that the public security bureau of M County of S City concealed the truth and practiced fraud while investigating a murder case. Director-general of the public security bureau of M County, deputy political commissar directly in charge, head of the criminal police team and political instructor were removed from office. In early 2005, the supervisors found that the public security bureau of Y County of L City concealed the truth and practiced fraud while solving a murder case. The director-general and the political commissar of the public security bureau of Y County were removed from office. In a year, 6 directors-general were “removed from office” due to work ineffectiveness. The police team of the police security department of H Province identified and solved more than 67,000 problems and issued 1,089 supervision notices, proposals and decisions, and more than 800 police received punishments for violation of Party discipline, political discipline and police discipline in varying degrees. Power discipline of H Province was considered by media and the public as a “supervision storm”. In recent years, H Province continuously intensified its supervision force, with the supervision team of the provincial public security department expanding from 8 to 40 members and the number of supervisory policemen increasing from more than 400 in 2003 to 910, accounting for 1.1% of the police of the province. Policing supervision, as a power supervision mechanism, tries to carry out comprehensive control over the operation process of police power, and especially it stresses real-time monitoring of site. According to Regulations on Supervision of Public Security Organs, the supervisory organ should carry out field supervision over the organization and implementation of policing deployment, measure and activity, registration and investigation of criminal and public security cases and adoption of punishment and coercive measures, implementation of administrative laws and

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regulations on public security, traffic, administration concerning residents and residency and exit and entry, internal affair management, civilized law enforcement and duty, compliance with police discipline and regulation, handling of cases reported by the masses, request for help, charge and appeal and other situations that public security organs and the police perform the duties, exercise official powers and observe discipline. Besides, the supervision department should also handle various complaints, including (I) Public complaints about existing problems observed during law enforcement of public security organs and the police; (II) Public complaints about violations against discipline of public security organs and the police; (III) Matters concerning complaints assigned by leaders and the policing supervision department of superior public security organs. Of course, as to complaints that have gone through the procedures for petition, administrative review or administrative litigation and those within the jurisdiction of other functional departments of public security organs, the policing supervision department should hand over them to relevant departments immediately after registration and give feedback to the petitioner simultaneously. Complaints that are assigned by leaders and the policing supervision department of superior public security organ should be closed and reported in the specified time. If there is no deadline, generally they should be closed and reported in 30 working days. If the deadline should be postponed in special cases, the cause and progress should be reported timely and in writing. As to complaints that are handed over because the handling result is suspected, the policing supervision department of superior public security organ can request the policing supervision department of subordinate public security organ to handle the case again. When necessary, the superior policing supervision department can directly handle the case again. The difficulties in investigation of the superior unit in the petition system may be eased if the supervision system gets involved. The effectiveness of policing supervision system is based on strict accountability. Supervision is useless without punishment. Even though leader of the public security department and vice-governor Li Feng gave written instructions repeatedly in a case, full accountability was not achieved. Vice-governor Li Feng severely ordered to investigate the responsibility with determination. The Ministry of Public Security explicitly requests to establish an accountability system for mistakes made in the law enforcement process, resolutely hold approver, verifier and handler accountable and supervise leaders and the police to handle

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affairs consciously and legally while correcting mistakes made in the law enforcement process. The public security bureau of A City will further improve this system and points out that, public security organ that makes mistakes in the law enforcement process should hold approver, verifier, processor, identifier and other directly responsible persons accountable according to their responsibilities and different situations. While handling a case, those who misconduct in office, are seriously irresponsible and bend the law for personal gain and consequently public petition is caused, should receive punishments for violation of Party and political disciplines. If any crime is committed in severe cases, the responsible person should be prosecuted for criminal liability. For mistakes made in the law enforcement process, if baneful influence and severe consequence are caused, the leader in charge should be held accountable. If any petition is caused by any of the following situations, any units set a private coffer without permission, detention, unauthorized outlay or misappropriation of penalties, or unauthorized collection of earnest money, the main responsible person should be removed from office on the spot. In a strict accountability system, the investigated persons including head of the complaint office, directorgeneral of the county-level public security bureau and the director of the police station as well as the police and ordinary staff members should be punished severely once they are testified to have made mistakes. Under this circumstance, standardization of grassroots police’s law enforcement has improved quickly. The “supervision storm” almost had instant results. The public security department of H Province believes that policing supervision is indeed “a coup” to ensure effective implementation of public security work. To give full play to the supervisory function, the Party committee of the public security department of H Province timely adjusts thinking and shifts the focus of supervision from special action and central work to all aspects of public security work, so as to ensure diversified and high-intensity supervision according to work arrangements and realize full coverage of public security work. Then, supervision storm, which is a special work, is converted into routine supervision work. As a routine supervision system, policing supervision has three different characteristics from other supervision systems. (1) With relative independence, it is independent of discipline inspection body and administrative supervisory body of the Party. (2) It focuses on advance supervision and in-progress supervision and aims at identifying the problems earlier

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and correcting them timely and avoiding severe consequences. (3) It has strong pertinence. That is, it can supervise policing activities of public security organ comprehensively and compliance with law and discipline simultaneously in order to ensure the effectiveness of supervision (Li and Jiang 2007). The reason that policing supervision plays a special role is because it can control the police’s law enforcement in real time and exercise the right of site disposal specific to the problems identified on the spot to effectively avoid misconduct of the police. It should be pointed out that the right of site disposal in policing supervision is not equal to the right of disciplinary sanction and it is a temporary disposal method according to legal principle. According to relevant provisions of Regulations on Supervision of Public Security Organs, the supervisory body can propose and hand over to relevant departments to handle illegal and undisciplined behaviors of the police, for which administrative penalty or demotion should be given, through field supervision according to relevant national provisions. It not only can prevent the supervisory body from exceeding their duties and meddling in others’ affairs while exercising their official powers and weaken functions of discipline inspection and supervision departments, but also makes it necessary and possible for the supervisory body to strengthen their cooperation and connection in work.

Technology of Power of “Policing Supervision” In practice, policing supervision gradually forms a set of technical systems relating to power monitoring. Specific to different types of police’s law enforcement, the supervision department has invented various matched monitoring techniques to make up a close control network. Public security organ can master the trend of police’s law enforcement within the shortest time using this network and timely intervene with police’s deviant behaviors. Field supervision is the core of policing supervision, of which “open investigation” and “unannounced visit” are the most common ways to find the truth and both request people who seek the truth to participate in the investigation process instead of making judgments only using secondhand report data. The Ministry of Public Security stresses on giving full play to the advantages of field supervision, strengthening the intensity and depth of supervision and management in the public security system, identifying, inhabiting, correcting and solving existing problems as earlier

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as possible and supervising relevant departments and units to earnestly rectify the problems, build rules and systems and block loopholes. So-called field supervision refers to that the supervisor executes the task and carries out field investigation together with the police and carries out simultaneous and dynamic supervision over on-going police activities of public security organ and the police. Featured by broad, deep, timely and active, field supervision adapts to the need of public security organ to dynamic law enforcement and fills in the gap of supervision. It highlights locality, reflects dynamic management and features in-depth investigation of the police, field supervision, timely correction, initiative and strong acting force. “Open investigation” in field supervision is mainly intended for some routine law enforcement activities and carries out field supervision over operation of police power through inspecting internal affairs, law enforcement process, police’s dressing and attitude on the spot. “Unannounced visit” refers to carrying out surprise inspection of police’s law enforcement without prior notice, which can effectively avoid temporary cheating behavior of the supervised person to master true law enforcement information. In A City, “four truths” of hotel and internet bar are mostly recorded and uploaded through open investigation and unannounced visit. During February 6 to 8, 2012, the team of the supervision department of the public security bureau of A City and the police order command center made up an unannounced visit group, which carried out unannounced visit for “four real” (real-name, real-number, real-fact and real-time) recording and uploading system of hotels and internet bars within the jurisdiction of all county-level public security bureaus in the city and all police stations in the urban area, totaling 77 (including 44 hotels and 33 internet bars), and found that 20 (including 8 hotels and 12 internet bars) could implement the “four real” system, accounting for only 26%, and 57 (including 36 hotels and 21 internet bars) could not do so, accounting for 74%.

Individual case supervision and special case supervision are two major types of supervision. The former is mainly intended for petition for public complaints and specific cases forwarded by superior units and leaders at the same level and aimed at exploring the truth of individual case. In practice, most policing supervision is individual case supervision. For an individual case with a great impact, a special case team will often be built for a thorough investigation. The essence of power technology of individual case supervision is that the power of superior units concentrates

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on individual case and the police of individual case reveal the truth under heavy power pressure and crack down on people who exceed the bounds. Special case investigation is concentrated supervision over key work in each period in order to ensure smooth implementation of special work or solve relevant cases by batches. In the public security bureau of A City, there are many types of special case supervision. The foremost special case supervision is supervision conducted monthly for policing reform and innovation and it is aimed at solidly promoting the reform of policing mechanism of public security organs in the whole city, realizing seamless cooperation of police activities and make achievements in the perspective of attacking criminal offense, intensifying social control, maintaining social stability and serving the masses. During November 17–21, 2011, the supervision committee of the supervision department of the municipal public security bureau made up 5 supervision teams to carry out centralized supervision over alarm receival and disposal, street police visibility, police’s work efficiency and site disposal rate of police stations in the downtown, employment and working condition of community police, real-name registration and uploading of hotels and internet bars. The supervisors set up 18 simulated emergencies or events, made a telephone interview with 90 persons, paid a field visit to 270 persons, investigated 18 community police offices publicly and privately and inspected 41 hotels and internet bars.

In addition, public security organs should carry out special supervisions over safety inspection of safe use of gun, “case solving”, petition governance, murder detection and police affairs disclosure, and so on. Different from the aforesaid inspection systems, retroactive inspection system is mainly intended for cases that have already happened and aimed at investigating responsibility. The distinctiveness of retroactive inspection system is that the supervision department should still investigate the responsibility of a case even though relevant cases are solved by the police ultimately. Therefore, retroactive inspection system is mainly applicable to “preventive cases”, such as theft. The basic concept of retroactive inspection system is that, as long as the police discharge their duties, preventive cases can be avoided completely. And it means that the police may not be dutiful once such cases occur and it is necessary to investigate the responsibility for such dereliction of duty, even if such cases have been solved.

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On May 7, 2011, Linxiang Police Station organized to crack down on a pyramid scheme organization in a rented house within the jurisdiction, detained 14 lawbreakers and saved Wang, a university student who was swindled and restricted. The supervision department of the municipal public security bureau carried out retroactive inspection of control over the pyramid scheme organization on that day and found that Feng Sijing, a community policewoman of Linxiang Police Station, failed to discharge the duties practically in daily management of rented houses and temporary resident population. Feng Sijing established management archives of Zhang Xuehu’s rented house in form and signed Security Administration Responsibility of Rented Houses with the householder, but she didn’t pay a visit or carry out investigation in daily work. As a result, those people engaged in pyramid scheme for two months in the rented house and several persons were trapped and could not escape.

Retroactive inspection system has been frequently applied to community police affairs, especially management of rented houses and transient population. Community police often complained to me and they consider that many cases cannot be avoided through police’s effort, so they strongly object to retroactive inspection system. It is believed that policing supervision shows the ideal pursuit of “zero tolerance” of the police’s mistake just in the retroactive inspection system. Actually, retroactive inspection system has exceeded the scope of community police and extended to the field of petition governance. The public security bureau of A City stipulates that retroactive inspection system should be adopted for petition cases involving legal issues. If a petition case is caused due to subjective fault when a case is handled, the handler and relevant responsible persons should receive a warning or other punishments. If the petitioner petitions again due to irresponsibility and ineffectiveness, leader of the subcontractor, responsible person of the organizer and the police should be held accountable according to relevant stipulations. Grassroots police are supervised by a rigorous monitoring network through various supervision techniques, which energetically promotes to further standardize the police’s law enforcement. Although grassroots police station and police suffer increasing inspection by the supervision department in a perspective, any inspection occupies the time of normal law enforcement after all. Nevertheless, both may need to be coadapted in practice, and resources occupied by power control are essential cost for healthy operation of power.

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Organizational Network of Policing Supervision Policing supervision not only forms a rich power technology network but also owns an organizational network that carries such power technologies. In the organizational network of policing supervision, supervision departments at different levels monitor the police’s law enforcement process within the extent of competence and form a high-density power control system to reduce the police’s misconduct. Whereas the supervision department is entitled to supervise the police at the same level and subordinate police, grassroots police have to accept the monitoring of almost all supervision departments. In order to further optimize supervision mode and fully exert the supervision function, the Ministry of Public Security proposed to carry out dispatched supervision system at provincial and municipal public security organs in 2012. The dispatched supervision system adapted to the objective laws that superior supervision has stronger strength and high efficiency, effectively solve the “difficulty in supervision over public security organs at the same level”. It can solidify supervision of provincial and municipal public security organs, optimize the deployment of dispatched supervisors, realize flexible arrangement of supervisor, facilitate centralized supervision of the police and improved overall effectiveness, credibility and authority of supervision work. As a matter of fact, dispatched supervision system has been explored early in 2010 when H Province carried out policing reform. That is, the public security bureaus of provincial cities assigned law enforcement and discipline supervisors to subordinate police stations with supervising cadres transferred to especially assigned persons of the municipal public security bureau. The assigned supervisor was under unified management of the municipal public security bureau and under the leadership of the policing supervision team of the public security bureau of the provincial cities and exercised comprehensive supervision over law enforcement, handling of case and observation of law and discipline of the police of police stations, including directors and political commissars. Such external supervision mode was considered to effectively solve the problems of “far from supervision by superiors, weak supervision by counterparts and difficult supervision by subordinates” and thus it was highly recommended. Supervision, discipline inspection and legal departments assigned to police stations worked jointly, which were collectively referred to as discipline inspection and legal supervision brigade, so as to build a pattern

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of great supervision, narrow the distance to the police, extend the scope of supervision and form a resultant force of supervision. Such supervision was face-to-face, zero-distance and over the entire law enforcement process. With Linxiang Police Station as an example, the discipline inspection and legal supervision team had 8 members, of which 4 took charge of legal system and 4 were responsible for discipline inspection and supervision. The team was a unit assigned by the municipal public security bureau to police station and under unified management of the municipal public security bureau in personnel, expenditure and management in order to ensure relative independence. The most direct supervision organization over the police of police stations is a supervision team assigned by the superior unit, which is responsible for zero-distance supervision in the law enforcement process of the police. Except for assigning a supervision team to police stations, the municipal public security bureau also retains its own police force to carry out direct supervision over the police when necessary. The supervision team of the municipal public security bureau supervises not only the police of police station but also other departments at the same level. On June 2, 2011, the supervision team of the supervision department of the municipal public security bureau carried out field supervision over the legal team of the supervision department’s duty fulfillment, exercise of the power and compliance with regulations and discipline, and found that the workers of the legal system could not fulfill their duties legally and exercise their power correctly and had the problems of disordered internal management and bad sanitary conditions of office.

In addition to the routine supervision carried out by the municipal public security bureau, the provincial public security department often assigns a supervision team to carry out supervision in different places from time to time without prior notice, which imposes great pressure on grassroots police officers. In order not to criticized by the supervision team of the provincial public security department, all cities have to shift pressure to subordinate units and request them to discharge their duties, except for inquiring supervision tendencies of the provincial public security department in many aspects. If the provincial public security department circulates a notice of criticism on ineffectiveness of their work, subordinate units will be severely punished.

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The public security bureau of A City stipulates that community police that do not fulfill their duties earnestly, cannot identify problems and provide clues timely and are identified by the superior unit during unannounced visit and supervised by the supervisor should be held accountable seriously. Public security police that do not rectify and strike but indulge industries with rampant illegal criminal activities such as prostitution and whoring, manufacture and communication of obscene goods, gambling, drug abuse and drug trafficking, and are identified by the superior public security organ during unannounced visit and supervised by the supervisor should be held accountable seriously. Director in charge of public security should be held accountable strictly if more than two consecutive illegal amusement places in the same area have been identified during unannounced visit, handled in supervision or closed by the superior public security organ. To actively and steadily promote reform and innovation of the policing mechanism in the whole province, as instructed and requested by vicegovernor Lin Feng, the provincial public security department assigned 180 policemen to carry out centralized supervision over police system during March 3 to 9, 2011. In that period, the provincial public security department assigned a supervision team to privately investigate internal management of grassroots police of the public security bureau of some cities and the construction of the community police office. The supervisor found many people who applied for a temporary residential permit in an office on the second floor of XX1 police station and a female worker in casual clothes told them to another office, but the supervisor found nobody there. People told the supervisor that they had come several times but still failed to obtain a temporary residential permit.

Another type of supervision is initiated by the Ministry of Public Security, namely inter-provincial cross supervision. The Ministry of Public Security hopes to carry out macro control over local police affairs through inter-provincial supervision. In 2012, the Ministry of Public Security initiated “a case solving battle” to severely strike economic crimes, requesting all provinces to carry out cross supervision and proposing concrete solutions for such supervision. The Ministry of Public Security requested the supervision team to strictly execute “five prohibitions” and regulations on incorruptibility and self-discipline, especially participants are not allowed to drink alcohol during cross supervision. Provinces are not allowed to communicate with each other and solicit favor on behalf of

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others. Corrupt behaviors such as sightseeing tour, acceptance of gift and entertainment are strictly prohibited. Transportation and living expenses and necessary expenditures must be verified by the Ministry of Public Security. For individuals who violate the aforesaid disciplines, record a demerit or above. For units that violate the rules, carry out “cancelation of achievements”. Of course, the Ministry of Public Security may assign a supervision team to carry out investigation in different places if necessary, especially for some influential or trans-provincial cases. Obviously, policing supervision has formed an organizational network consisting of supervisors assigned by the municipal public security bureau, supervisor of the municipal public security bureau, supervisor of the provincial public security department, supervisor of the Ministry of Public Security. The supervision team at different levels carries out supervision and builds a strict monitoring network in the law enforcement process of the police, which can monitor the police’s violation of law immediately.

Policing Supervision Under Panopticism Rigorous power technology network and power organization network determine the monitoring framework of policing supervision, which obviously forms a power monitoring pattern under panopticism with the support of the current information networks. Panopticism is a concept presented by Foucault to describe a control mechanism. That is, the supervisor can view all information of the supervised to identify their deviant behaviors anytime, while the supervised knows neither the supervisor’s information nor when and where the supervisor will carry out supervision. Bentham’s panopticon can be taken as the earliest model of panopticism. However, panopticism efficiency cannot be maximized by virtue of the all-pervasive information network today whether in the age of Bentham or Foucault. The most obvious feature of the information age is to convert all information into data to share it between the releaser and the receiver almost simultaneously. When the supervisor can share instant information of the supervised simultaneously, it means that the supervised is almost completely visible to the supervisor. It is just based on the concept of panopticism that in 2008, the Ministry of Public Security proposed making the best of informatization to actively implement online process management, online examination and approval, online supervision and

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online assessment for law enforcement and handling of cases and to infiltrate informatization means into all links of law enforcement and handling of cases in order to standardize the law enforcement process, implement law enforcement system, strengthen supervision over law enforcement and improve the quality of law enforcement through informatization. Under the call of the Ministry of Public Security, policing supervision informatization has been reformed in different places. At the end of 2011, the policing supervision comprehensive information system of public security organs of H Province was officially put into use, which comprised provincial-level platform, municipal-level platform and county-level platform, can realize comprehensive supervision over law enforcement, duty, internal management, image and discipline of public security organs at different levels of the province. Every post and every specific duty behavior of public security organs of the whole province are included in the supervision scope through video and audio. To obtain all information of police’s law enforcement more comprehensively, the public security bureau of A City has requested 110 command center to accept public complaints1 since 2011. According to the principle of territorial jurisdiction, the policing supervision team of county-level public security organs and the discipline inspection and legal supervision team of police stations should be responsible for acceptance and inspection. The supervision team of the supervision department of the municipal public security bureau should realize public complaints accepted by 110 command center, and all units should assign a person to check and accept such complaints every day and report to the supervision team within the specified time. In this way, the municipal public security bureau can timely and comprehensively understand the police’s deviant behaviors in the law enforcement process. The 110 command center also assigns cases to police stations to control the progress and requests to give feedback anytime. The command center also 1 In order to supervise public security work by all sectors of society and the masses more conveniently, timely and effectively and promote the building of public security teams, it was proposed to endow 110 police service center of public security organ with new functions to accept public complaints and illegal and undisciplined problems in the national meeting of the director-general of the public security department. The Ministry of Public Security decided that 110 service center of public security organs across the country formally accepted public complaints by telephone from March 1, 2000. Refer to A Notice of the Ministry of Public Security about 110 Service Center Earnestly Handling Public Complaints, the Ministry of Public Security, 2000.

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can understand the police’s law enforcement situation through paying a return visit to the reporter. The supervision department can monitor different policing places anytime through video and audio, which was the prevailing online policing reform in recent years. During March 26 to April 1, 2012, the online supervision center of the public security department of H Province continuously supervised the construction and application of online supervision system and management situation of public security organs of provincial cities through video and audio supervision system and identified a total of 105 problems of 9 types. Policing supervision changed greatly due to technological advancement and entered the age of panopticism with further improvement of law enforcement information sharing technology. Panoptic policing supervision mode shows an order of power supervision. Police of police station—supervision team assigned by municipal public security bureau—supervision team of municipal public security bureau—director-general of municipal public security bureau. The latter power corpus can monitor the former and all supervision powers concentrate on the director-general of municipal public security bureau. In A City, the supervision team of the municipal public security bureau frequently supervises the supervision team assigned by the municipal public security bureau and it occurred several times in half a year when I carried out research. Leader of the municipal public security bureau has keen insight into deviant behaviors of its supervision team. The director-general of the public security bureau of A City is highly concerned about policing supervision and strict with the supervision team. When A City was carrying out a special assignment the forenoon on September 24, 2011, the municipal Party committee and the municipal government issued a notice, requesting Party and government offices of the city to work without rest. However, Xue Ruyi, a member of the supervision team of the supervision department of the municipal public security bureau watched TV in the duty room in working time and kept the handheld wireless interphone mute. Inevitable, he received a stern warning.

Not only is the supervision power of the director-general restricted to the supervision team of the municipal public security bureau, even grassroots police are caught by the director-general on the spot due to deviant

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behaviors and these “unlucky” police will often come to no good. Interphone is an important reason why the director-general can master law enforcement information of grassroots police. From the director-general to grassroots police, everyone keeps carrying an interphone and being connected. The permission of interphone increases with increase of supervision power and it indicates that people with greater power can obtain more information through interphone. For example, the supervision team of the municipal public security bureau can talk to the policeman on duty using interphone, but grassroots police can just receive information sent by the 110 command center and patrolmen. Obviously, the directorgeneral of the municipal public security bureau as the highest permission of interphone and he can give instructions to the police using interphone anytime. When I chatted with the police, they must notice the instructions given by the interphone. It will be deemed as a mistake if the 110 command center calls three times and nobody answers and the director-general will ask the policeman on duty to report to the municipal public security bureau on the spot immediately after hearing it. The interphone mainly covers patrol car (one for each), duty room (one for each) and leader on duty. As the highest supervisor, the director-general can locate every policeman using interphone anytime to monitor them. Under panoptic policing supervision mode, police power is strictly monitored. Grassroots police’s law enforcement process is visible like under a lot of projector lamps and the space for police’s misconduct narrows day by day.

Reference Li Yunzhao and Jiang Lingyan 2007. Discussion about the Unique Role of Policing Supervision in Building Public Security Organs. Yunnan Police Officer Academy Journal (1).

CHAPTER 5

Zero Tolerance and “Nonfeasance for Fear of Complaint”

Under panoptic policing supervision mode, police’s misconduct can be minimized to reduce petition against the police as far as possible. In addition, if policing supervision loses fundamental principles, consequentialist zero tolerance policy will lead power discipline to another extreme and result in police’s nonfeasance.

Zero Tolerance Policy As power discipline is intensified continuously, policing supervision has a zero tolerance tendency. Zero tolerance policy refers to adopting rigorous strategy against slight illegal and undisciplined behaviors to avoid more serious criminal offense. Although the public security department does not advocate “zero tolerance” clearly, it is clearly embodied in practice. Zero tolerance policy is well-known because it is regarded as the primary cause of a sharp decline in the crime rate in New York in America in the 1990s. At that time, the police of New York believed that they must uphold the most serious attitude toward various antisocial behaviors and crimes to completely reverse social disorder and they must resolutely and uncompromisingly fight even minor criminal offense (Wang and Liu 2005). After a few years, the crime rate of New York dropped significantly and zero tolerance policy aroused wide attention of the theoretical cycle and the practical circle. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 83 Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Huihuang, Petition Against the Police, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0_5

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Researchers often take Break Pane Law as the theoretical basis for zero tolerance policy. In 1982, American politician James Q. Wilson and criminologist George L. Kelling put forward Break Pane Law and built a new pattern of crime evolution theory. The basic idea of Break Pane Law is that If a window of a building in a community was destroyed and nobody repaired it, the destroyer will misunderstand that nobody managed the entire building and will be implied that they can destroy the building at will. As time passes, these broken windows will give a sense of social disorder. As a result, crime will multiply and prosper when the public are insensible. Break Pane Law was verified by experiment to some extent. Based on Break Pane Law, people believe that more harmful criminal offense can be avoided only when slight deviant behaviors are cracked down timely and effectively. According to Break Pane Law, zero tolerance policy got life and worldwide policing reform gained more and more support due to a good practical effect of New York. “3 Strikes” policy adopted by American police can be taken as a reprint of zero tolerance policy to a large extent. In a disordered community, zero tolerance policy was particularly recognized, since it considered uneasiness of community members that may be caused by any slight deviant behavior. In fact, there is little chance for most people to suffer serious offenses, but great chance to suffer slight damage. The latter has a wider scope of damage. It is visible that zero tolerance policy is recognized for two reasons. One is to avoid more serious offenses and the other is to satisfy most people’s need for psychological security. Zero tolerance policy is often introduced to preventing and attacking duty-related crimes of civil servants, of which anti-corruption has the greatest influence. Researchers consider corruption as a result of Break Pane Law. The increasingly serious corruption problem often occurs because slight corrupt behaviors are indulged or cannot be controlled timely and effectively. Slight corrupt behaviors are imitated and continuously enlarged and consequently lead to extensive corruption phenomenon. For this reason, “zero tolerance” policy is adopted in some places and produces a good effect, with Singapore and Hong Kong as a typical example (Liao and Luo 2012). Generally speaking, zero tolerance policy is discussed with the purpose of maintaining social order and political order. After all, these two types of zero tolerance mean to uphold an intolerant attitude towards deviant

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behaviors. Deviant behaviors of these two fields are disgusting for the public. In China, zero tolerance policy in social order was introduced into provincial capital cities in 2005. It is reported that the police in a southern city started to implement “zero tolerance” policing mode from 2005. “Jianlan” action that was aimed at crackdown on criminal offense and actions and “Jianfeng” and “Yuejian” that were aimed at crackdown on public security crimes were organized one after another, striving to adopt strong law enforcement measures against slight crimes to prevent more serious crimes to lower the crime rate (Chen 2010). In recent years, public security organs of Zhejiang Province took “positively responding to the public’s new expectations to public security work and striving to meet the public’s new requirements for public security work” proposed by the Party Committee of the Ministry of Public Security as the direction to build a harmonious relationship between police and the public, adhered to “zero tolerance” and “zero slackness”. “Zero tolerance” and “zero slackness” are the extension and implementation of “the biggest two” concepts (the biggest politics of public security organs is to maintain stability, promote development and create harmony and the biggest achievement of public security organs is to crack more cases, solve more contradictions, eliminate more hidden dangers and reduce criminal cases, casualties and losses) and cover all aspects of public security work and team building. Local public security department is requested to identify public security problems earlier and strictly control the source of accident potential in production safety management (Wang 2010).1 In the political order field, the academic circle and the police circle increasingly advocate zero tolerance policy against police corruption and other slight deviant behaviors. In long-term law enforcement practice, law enforcement activity of public security has defects and shortcomings in essence and procedure for many reasons, such as handling of cases involving interpersonal relationship, human feelings and money, bending of law, nonfeasance and misconduct during law enforcement, failure in registration of case, delay in police affairs, inappropriate storage of evidence, management disorder of properties involving a case and nonperformance of obligation to disclose during law enforcement, which

1 Wang Huizhong was secretary of the Standing Committee of CPC Committee of Zhejiang Province and the director-general of the Public Security Department.

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seriously weakens the authority of public security organ, lowers their credibility in law enforcement, causes many bad consequences and deprives the initiative in public security work. Therefore, “zero tolerance” of the aforesaid law enforcement defects means to strengthen all-weather and whole-process strict management of law enforcement activities like product quality management of modern enterprise, with standardization as the criterion and “zero defect” as the goal (Chen 2010). Zero tolerance to police’s deviant behaviors means to repair, block and solve law enforcement problems earlier, provide transpositional, extended and active handy services for the public and not to avoid, conceal faults and resolutely solve illegal and undisciplined acts in team management (Wang 2010). In recent years, the public security system of H Province was known far and wide for rigorous “supervision storm”, especially after policing reform, even slight deviant behaviors of the police were supervised. In 2012, the provincial public security department further proposed to carry out law enforcement “zero fault” and “zero case-involved petition” competition activities among grassroots public security teams. Law enforcement “zero fault” refers to that the police of grassroots public security teams make no mistakes in determining facts, applicable law, violation of legal procedures or other faults arising from intention or fault in the law enforcement process. “Zero case-involved petition” refers to the police of grassroots public security teams have no problems of law enforcement, working attitude or job responsibility in the law enforcement process and the public do not petition to provincial public security departments or superior authorities. In order to ensure effective implementation of this activity, the provincial public security department requested to carry out special supervision and inspection of working conditions in different stages through public and unannounced visit. In fact, this activity gave full play to zero tolerance policy in the public security system by virtue of panoptic policing supervision system.

A System That Allows No Mistakes Zero tolerance policy can be comprehended from three aspects. Firstly, punishments should be given for relatively serious deviant behaviors explicitly against laws and regulations. It actually refers to “treating deviant behaviors that should be treated seriously”. In essence, it is an act of governance according to law. Then, relatively slight but not illegal deviant behaviors should be cracked down, e.g. peeing or spitting in

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public places, which is actually the most classic presentation of zero tolerance policy. Finally, once bad social consequences are caused, even though they are caused by honest mistake and out of control, the parties involved should assume the responsibility for presumptive fault, which should be the most extreme embodiment of zero tolerance policy. In the policing supervision system, “treating relatively serious deviant behaviors of the police according to law” is the most important part and harsh punishments will be given as long as complaints about the police are investigated and verified. During February 13 to 29, 2012, the supervision team of the supervision department of the municipal public security bureau organized field supervision over duty and attendance, law enforcement, management of official business vehicles and implementation of “five prohibitions” of public security organs in the whole city. At 21: 28 on February 13, the supervisor saw the door of X police station of the Public Security Bureau of XX County was closed. The supervisor knocked at the door as a reporter, but the policeman on duty Xu Qiucheng refused by “I have fallen asleep, please report your case to the criminal police team”. The policeman on duty finally opened the door after the supervisor requested repeatedly. Meanwhile, the supervisor found that the inquiry room and the interrogation room could not be opened since the policeman on duty had no key and the duty room had hidden safety hazards due to the use of coal stove and for lack of ventilation and smoke exhaust facilities. The Public Security Bureau of XX County was penalized by 10 points for objective management according to regulations.

A bad attitude of the police, as the protector of people’s rights and interests, toward the reporter is obviously against the provisions of laws and policies. Thus, severe punishment of such behaviors is obviously reasonable. Once involving relatively slight deviant behaviors, severe punishment is often considered “inhumane”, so it is apt to produce negative emotion among the police. On March 1, 2012, the supervision team of the supervision department of the municipal public security bureau found in the field investigation over daily work of the national defense team that, Zeng Qiang, a policeman of the national defense team, played games online using office computer. On March 2, 2012, Zeng Qiang received an administrative warning and was criticized publicly in the whole city upon research in the office meeting of the director-general of the municipal public security bureau.

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Strictly speaking, according to Interim Procedures for Administrative Fault Accountability of Office Workers of A City and Regulations on Punishments for Civil Servants of Administrative Organs, Zeng Qiang’s behavior was an act of omission, but whether “it had a bad impact” and thus a more severe punishment should be given could be considered. In the viewpoint of most police, the parties involved should at most be criticized and educated in order not to be taken as a precedent and it is unnecessary to give a punishment of warning and circulate a notice and criticism in the whole city. Grassroots police are often opposed to such zero tolerance punishments, which are questioned for two reasons. Firstly, inappropriate punishments should not be given for little faults from the legal theory of “suiting punishment to crime” and everyone has the right to refuse sanctions beyond the extent of fault. Secondly, punishment is not a purpose but is intended for better education, and people who make little faults should get a chance to correct. Severe punishment for “presumptive fault” is most controversial and zero tolerance policy at this level arouses great dissatisfaction among the grassroots police especially community police. During December 1 to 31, 2011, the supervision team of the supervision department of the municipal public security bureau organized to carry out retroactive investigation into the responsibility of community police in a case of burglary. At 17: 43 on December 1, Huang, a resident who lived in XX Staff Residence at XX Road in the downtown, reported that his door lock was prized, with a gold necklace and cash of 200 Yuan stolen, totaling 3100 Yuan. It was found from retroactive investigation that Zheng Tianming, a community policeman of Taoshu Police Station who was charge of this area, carried out investigation and visit and gave safety precautions, but not comprehensively and carefully enough.

Community police’s visit, registration and propaganda are not necessarily connected to a case of burglary and even policemen with a strong self-protection awareness often have belongings stolen. Therefore, it is not fair and just to attribute all cases of burglary within the jurisdiction to the police’s dereliction of duty. Such punishment may be deemed as a way to check the work of community police, namely whether the police carry out the work in full accordance with regulations, which is also a kind of supervision over other police. However, the police soon find that even if they complete the work in full accordance with regulations, they

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still will be punished for “not paying a visit comprehensively and carefully” once a case of burglary occurs. Thus, the police will assume the responsibility for “presumptive fault” as long as a case occurs. According to the spirit in the Minutes of Office Meeting of the Director-general of the Municipal Public Security Bureau, the police will be suspended from his duties for half a month and have a twoway choice of employment if three cases of burglaries occur in a month within the jurisdiction. It is a very severe punishment for the police, since nobody can completely eradicate such cases no matter how hard they work. However, two-way choice most often means unemployment, since a “tainted” policeman can hardly be employed. The police consider such zero tolerance punishment as a punishment based on luck, so it is not important to work hard. Here, we can understand why grassroots police under zero tolerance policy uphold a negative attitude toward work soon.

Ungrounded Complaint and No-Fault Punishment The aforesaid zero tolerance policy is mainly aimed at the police who have made a mistake or who are presumed faulty. Although it seems “inhumane” in some cases, it is a punishment for deviant behaviors or suspected deviant behaviors after all. It is annoying that the police still receive “nofault punishment” even though they do not make a mistake or they are the victim. The supervision department should not only severely punish the police’s deviant behaviors, but also be responsible for safeguarding rights of the police. The Ministry of Public Security stipulates that the supervision body should take the responsibility for daily work of “Committee for Safeguarding the Police Rights and Interests in Law-enforcement”, ensure normal law enforcement activities of public security organs and maintain law enforcement interests of police officer and law enforcement authority of public security organ through investigating and collecting evidence timely, carefully clarifying untrue complaints, coordinating and supervising relevant departments to seriously investigate and punish unlawful acts such as attacking police against the law, viciously accusing the police and obstructing and interfering the police with fulfillment of duties. In practice, the supervision department makes much less efforts to safeguard rights of the police than to attack the police and the supervision department is often too prudent when the police’s lawful rights and interests are infringed upon.

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At 7:56 on November 30, 2010, Huang Zhong, a worker of the organ service center of the administrative bureau for industry and commerce of A City, drove a black Santana 2000 car and turned from XX Road to the front of the former municipal intermediate people’s court in the west section of XX Street from south to north. Long Xiang, a policeman on duty of the traffic police battalion of Linxiang Police Station, stopped him as stipulated by “Regulations on Passing of Motor Vehicles in Peak Period in the West Section of XX Street”. However, Huang Zhong didn’t follow the instructions but abused Long Xiang, attracting a group of onlookers, who felt highly dissatisfied with Huang Zhong’s behaviors. At 8: 10, acting deputy director of Linxiang Police Station Niu Liqun et al. took Huang Zhong to the former office location of Linxiang Police Station and educated him. After that, Huang Zhong was taken away by his employer. Niu Liqun, as the acting deputy director in charge of traffic patrol, should have handed over Huang Zhong, who was suspected of hindering from performance of official functions against the law, to the public security team of Taoshu Police Station with jurisdiction according to law. He didn’t do so but release Huang Zhong, which aroused strong dissatisfaction of onlookers. After the supervision department carried out investigation, the municipal public security bureau decided firstly to order the acting deputy director of Linxiang Police Station Niu Liqun to submit a profound review to the Party committee of the municipal public security bureau and circulate a notice of criticism in the whole city. Secondly, praise and encourage Long Xiang, a policeman of Linxiang Police Station, for practically and legally performing his duties and strictly observing the rules and discipline in the law enforcement process, which fully displayed good professional ethics of the police. Thirdly, Huang Zhong was suspected of hindering the police from performing their duties, as stipulated by II of Article 50 of Law on Public Security Administration Punishments, the public security team should assign Taoshu Police Substation with jurisdiction to register, investigate and decide according to law.

On the surface, this case of safeguarding rights of the police is reasoned and an important manifestation of safeguarding rights through policing supervision, but the significance of this case is greatly reduced for the following reasons. (1) It is the only case of safeguarding rights of the police among hundreds of supervision cases in recent years that I researched and is extremely inconsistent with the situation that the police’s interests are damaged in practice. (2) In the viewpoint of many police, this supervision case is more a punishment for the deputy director

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Niu Liqun for not performing his duties according to law than safeguarding rights of Long Xiang. In this sense, this supervision case is essentially a discipline of the police’s misconduct. (3) In this case, Huang Zhong’s fact of malfeasance is certain and he should be treated according to law, so the possibility of petition is relatively low. Plenty of cases demonstrate that once the parties involved may petition or have started to petition, the public security department will often try not to offend them to maintain social stability. (4) In the research process, I made in-depth interview with Long Xiang repeatedly, who complained about unprincipled policing supervision most. He was beaten and scolded by the parties involved repeatedly for no reason while enforcing the law, but “his rights were rarely safeguarded” and even he was criticized by superiors for not resolving disputes and thus the parties involved petitioned. When I chatted with police Jia Qinguo and Long Xiang, Long Xiang mentioned that the masses treated the police more and more rudely and the police became weaker and weaker like a vulnerable group, which turned very obvious after 2005. “We overemphasize a harmonious society, so common people bully the police and the police become a punching bag”. They described many vivid cases to me. For example, the political commissar was stamped onto the ground while appeasing petition and the troublemaker was not punished according to law. Long Xiang was sieged by a group of blind persons using a walking stick while confiscating a tricycle as requested by superiors. He felt wronged and intended to detain the troublemakers, but the director of the public security bureau refused to deal with it by call. Long Xiang said, “Since then, I feel disappointed and I am reluctant to enforce the law actively”. “The public security organ no longer stresses the property of violence but blindly advocates service. All teams are named with service, which is included in the assessment of industry culture. Can the Ministry of Public Security be renamed public security service company? If all policemen engage in provision of service, who will crack down crime? Just as the saying goes, we should treat enemies like the autumn wind sweeping away the withered leaves. Nowadays, the state no longer distinguishes people from enemies and everyone is a good person, so nobody can be offended”. Besides, the supervisor treats the police more and more rudely, “the supervision team nearly becomes a team finding faults and increases their merits through getting the police marked down”. “In this case, the police are considered unreliable, so they should be supervised anytime and law enforcement activity should be controlled using a magnifying glass. Nobody’s perfect. Considering particularity of

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public security work, you will find faults if you are willing to. The police are not considered as a good person and it is hard for them to do the right things.”

In the viewpoint of Long Xiang and Jia Qinguo, a main function of the supervision team is to safeguard rights of the police, but nobody cares about the police’s grievance in reality. Jixiang, a policeman of the Public Security Brigade also complained to me, “Presently, cases keep biting the police like a dog. In case of a petition, the supervisor will have a talk with the policemen. The supervisor is good at finding faults of the police, but nobody protects the police’s right, though damaged!”. The Ministry of Public Security stipulates that police should remain vigilant at false charge or frame-up through complaint, while handling public complaints made by telephone, they should stress investigation, carefully listen to public opinions and prevent subjectivity and arbitrary decision. People who lodge a false accusation deliberately and make trouble out of nothing should be punished according to law. The supervisory body is requested to clarify untrue complaints, investigate deliberately false accusation and frame-up and practically maintain law enforcement authority of public security organs and legitimate interests of the police. In fact, there are plenty of underground complaints about the police. In 2007, underground complaints received by Hebei branch of Tianjin Public Security Bureau accounted for 86.6% (Chen and Zhang 2008).2 In 2011, policing supervision departments of Henan Province accepted a total of 3088 cases (events) approved by public complaints and superiors, of which underground complaints accounted for 75.7%.3 In the first half of 2011, public security supervision departments at different levels of Shandong Province accepted a total of 1139 cases of accusation and charge, of which underground complaints accounted for 91.7%.4 According to analysis of the supervision team of the Pubic Security Department of Shandong Province, there are many types of underground

2 Chen Weifu and Zhang Xin were from the Supervision Team of Hebei Branch of

Public Security Bureau of Tianjin City. 3 Analysis Report on Policing Supervision Department of Provincial Public Security Organ is Accepting and Investigating Cases (Events) in 2011, Public Security Department of Henan Province, 2012. 4 The Supervision Corps of the Public Security Department of Shandong Province: Survey and Analysis of Accepting and Investigating Untrue Public Complaints, 2011.

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complaints as follows: Firstly, the complainant deliberately lodges a false accusation and maliciously throws muck at the police through complaint. Some complainants fabricate information and make false charge or frameup to the police through “slander” and “false accusation” to retaliate them and try to prevent the police from punishing their unlawful acts. Some complainants have been cracked down or punished by public security organ, so they fabricate information to retaliate the police to “vent personal spite”. Some complainants are prejudiced to the police, so they accuse the police of unfair law enforcement and make hostility complaints against the police even though they enforce the law in strict accordance with laws and regulations. Secondly, the complainant is not malevolent subjectively, but they make untrue complaints because they are unfamiliar with laws and regulations or public security work. Some cases are beyond the jurisdiction of public security organs, but the masses blindly stress “call the police if you are in trouble” against relevant rules and regulations. Particularly, the parties involving economic disputes are reluctant to resolve their disputes in a normal legal way but request the police to act as a “dunner” and “protector”. Once their requirements are not satisfied, they will complain. As to cases of fighting and neighborhood disputes, whereas there is no legal ground to treat one party and both parties disagree with litigation, so they entangle with the police. If their requirements cannot be met, they will complain by such excuses as “injustice” and “handling of relative cases”. Some cases cannot be solved for lack of evidence and other reasons and the masses will complain against the police about low work efficiency and slackness.5 Facing underground complaints, the supervision department does not perform their duty to safeguard rights of the police. Relevant leaders who have no humanistic care and uphold an attitude “we prefer to believe it than to doubt about it” dare not to “rehabilitate police’s reputation”. Although the supervision department clarifies some complaints that confuse right and wrong deliberately through investigation, they often make concessions to avoid trouble instead of punishing the parties involved. As a result, underground complaints cost nothing and the complaints increases. In 2011, supervision departments at different levels of Shandong Province accepted a total of 33 cases of hostility 5 The Supervision Corps of the Public Security Department of Shandong Province: Survey and Analysis of Accepting and Investigating Untrue Public Complaints, 2011.

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complaint, humiliation and slander from January to May. Until now, only 5 policemen have rehabilitated their reputation.6 Policing supervisor’s loss of ability to judge and verify the right and the wrong significantly increases underground complaints and seriously discourages the police to handle cases. As a matter of fact, zero tolerance policy is mainly aimed at the police’s law enforcement problems, while high tolerance policy is adopted against underground complaint. Nevertheless, an increase in complaints will often make superiors impatient and it serves as an important indicator to measure the law enforcement level of subordinate units. The more complained units and policemen will fall behind in the evaluation system and pay the penalty accordingly. Unprincipled policing supervision imposes all complaints onto the police. Now that underground complaints cannot be denied and cracked down effectively, all faults will be shifted to the police, and the police should be responsible for any complaints and will get marked down and be criticized. It can be seen that zero tolerance policy on the police’s deviant behaviors has gone to the extreme. From zero tolerance of the police’s misconduct to zero tolerance of complaint or petition event, the police have assumed “no-fault liability” in the case of complaint or petition. As a result, the positive effect of policing supervision on cracking down the police’s deviant behaviors is gradually neutralized by the negative effect caused by “no-fault punishment”.

“Nonfeasance for Fear of Complaint” Old police introduced that the supervisor “played a trick on the police” according to whether the police made a mistake subjectively or to handle a case. In the latter case, the police will not be investigated excessively but criticized internally. In case of underground complaint, the complainant will be criticized and educated or punished by law. There is a justice or political ethics here, namely everything should be right or wrong regardless of boundary, but at least this system judges the right or the wrong. Now the problem is that we do not judge the right or the wrong but only the result. As long as the masses feel dissatisfied, the police must be

6 The Supervision Corps of the Public Security Department of Shandong Province: Survey and Analysis of Accepting and Investigating Untrue Public Complaints, 2011.

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wrong and punished. As a result, nothing is right or wrong and the police should assume no-fault liability and become demotivated. Alienated zero tolerance policy on policing supervision makes the police panic at compliant every day. After policing reform, grassroots police “are tired of working overload, worrying about public complaint and petition and being distrusted by leaders”. Once they are complained, the supervisor will get involved immediately and have a talk with them, which not only occupies a lot of time to handle cases but also makes the police criticized. The police have to obey orders of leaders, otherwise, they will be considered to uphold a bad attitude and “doubly guilty”. The police gradually lose enthusiasm for work when they think they are right and have no way to redress an injustice. Long Xiang complained to me immediately after seeing him: “Why are all problems attributed to the police? If intensifying supervision just reduces work efficiency only, too serious damages will be caused by attributing all problems to the police. Exactly, public interests should be safeguard. It is no wonder that there are a few bad people among so many policemen and those should be treated strictly. We cannot make everyone be unjustly blamed for mistakes made by some policemen! People are good or bad like the police. They should also assume the responsibility if making a mistake. Undoubtedly, public rights should be safeguarded, shouldn’t the police’s rights be safeguarded? If so, are the police willing to follow the Party without hesitation? The current supervision team is the police playing a trick on the police and they wish they could make trouble every day. However, they ignore damages that the police suffer. Why is the state on the side of people who make trouble out of nothing? Why do the police distrust other policemen? Now that all problems are attributed to the police, the police certainly will not be active in work.”

The police find that their pain mismatches their gain and even pain is reversely proportional to gain, namely the more active the police are the easier complaint and petition will be caused. Only active police will do more things, but the more things they do the more contradictions will be caused and the more possibly they will get in trouble. In the law enforcement process, the petitioner may persist in a little flaw and then they complain and petition everywhere. According to my research experience, complaint and petition against the police are caused mainly for three reasons. Firstly, there is no handling result due to inadequate

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evidence. Secondly, handling result does not meet the petitioner’s requirements. Thirdly, they hope to meet unreasonable requirements through complaint. Once the petitioner complains, the superior will request the police to assume “no-fault liability” and criticize the police for incorrect working method. As a result, the police’s work enthusiasm is heavily impacted. Li Chenghua, leader of the criminal police team, said, “the more cases we handle the more possibly we will make mistakes. We will not make mistakes if we do nothing. Then, people who are active in work become inactive and even negative in work”. Huang Qingshan, who is responsible for traffic control, is not willing to work in advance but just on time, so deputy director Niu Liqun often drove a car to supervise him, who felt dissatisfied and helpless sitting in the police box. Presently, the police’s mentality of “fearing complaint instead of work” has seriously affected some policemen’s mental health. Although some underground complaints have been clarified, the police are still very careful while enforcing the law due to some local supervision departments’ absence in “safeguarding rights of the police” and they are no longer passionate about work for fear of no-fault complaint. Consequently, a phenomenon of “nonfeasance for fear of complaint” appears among grassroots police, because they will suffer “no-fault punishment” whether they do well or not and they are more likely to be complained and punished if they do more. It is just because of such abnormal logic that the police become increasingly passive so that they try to handle as fewer cases as possible, manage as fewer things as possible and reconcile differences regardless of principles as far as possible. “Nonfeasance for fear of complaint” is currently a common mental state of the police and we can understand it broadly. That is, all phenomena of nonfeasance for fear of “no-fault punishment” can be deemed as “nonfeasance for fear of complaint”. The emergence of “nonfeasance for fear of complaint” offers a point for us to reflect upon zero tolerance policy. Firstly, the concept of zero fault contained in zero tolerance policy is incorrect, because it is not consistent with the development logic of things. Any system and anyone are not perfect. Even so, they may make mistakes in practice. From the perspective of economic cost, the more the police are tolerant of faults the higher their law enforcement efficiency is. When the police are tolerant of faults to some extent, the efficiency will decrease significantly due to law enforcement flaw. On the contrary, the less the police are tolerant of faults the lower their law enforcement efficiency is. When the police are

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not tolerant of faults, the efficiency will reach the lowest. The cost for prevention of faults will keep rising as the efficiency decreases, including inspection cost and supervision cost. Obviously, it is not feasible to realize zero fault of law enforcement at a huge cost when police resources are limited. If such thought is not adjusted, the police’s enthusiasm for law enforcement will not be raised despite policing reform. Relative to the police’s supervision, the state’s cost of public complaint and petition governance is much lower, because it adopts the simplest “no-fault principle”. All complaints and petitions should be attributed to the police and it is useless to explain. Thus, the government needs not to spend energy on identifying the reasonability of complaints and petitions. The problem is that the biggest beneficiary of “no-fault principle” is not the truly wronged people but those who make trouble out of nothing and seek personal profits. As a result, the police, people who do not petition and the few wronged people are the victim, which is obviously bad for social stability. Finally, extremely high supervision cost of the police’s law enforcement and extremely low cost to identify public complaint and petition are two necessary consequences of resource allocation. On one hand, they make it insignificant to supervise the police’s law enforcement and consequently plenty of social resources are wasted. Now that all problems are attributed to the police, severe supervision is an unnecessary move. On the other hand, they increase the cost of the police and police station to “pay money for safe” and cover up complaints and petitions. To prevent propagation of problems, irrational petitioner gets favorable negotiation conditions and can make requests again and again. It means that the police need to complete an invalid task by two huge costs, which should be used to optimize social governance ability, improve right relief system and elevate the police’s welfare to arouse their working enthusiasm.

References Chen Meirong. 2010. Humble Opinions About Guiding the Development of Policing Work by “Zero Tolerance” Concept. Policing Studies (11). Chen Weifu, Zhang Xin. 2008. Several Suggestions for Reducing Police-related Complaints, selected from articles on survey activities of policing supervision in 2008. Liao Xiaoming, Luo Wenjian. 2012. “Zero Tolerance” Anti-corruption: Connotation, Characteristic and Route. Chinese Public Administration (1).

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Wang Huizhong. 2010. Build A Harmonious Relationship between Police and People in the New Situation by”Zero Tolerance” and “Zero Omission”. Policing Studies (8). Wang Shizhou and Liu Shujun. 2005. Analysis of Zero Tolerance Policy. Journal of People’s Public Security University of China (4).

CHAPTER 6

“Petition Temptation” and Irrational Petition

Zero tolerance policy of policing supervision and “no-fault punishment” for the police has a great impact on petitions against the police. At present, the alienation of petition against the police is not so much caused by “the deterioration of the world and the degeneration of human heart” as the unexpected consequences of the operation of the petition system. The superior unit and the subordinate unit form a “petition temptation” mechanism in the game process of petition governance to attract plenty of irrational petitions and severely disturb the order of petition.

“Accuse the Police” The most annoying thing for grassroots police is that the parties involved complaints and petitions for no reason. Whether the police are responsible or not, the parties involved will keep entangling with the police once they feel dissatisfied. Actually, many problems can be resolved by the police, such as very old cases without a clue. Many problems are not in the charge of public security organs, but the parties involved may petition if their requirements are rejected. The contract between a house leaser and the lessee provided that the leased property shall not be sub-leased during the lease term. If necessary, the lessee must obtain the leaser’s permission for sublease. Afterwards, the lessee sub-leased the house without the leaser’s permission, copied the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 99 Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Huihuang, Petition Against the Police, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0_6

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contract with relevant articles covered and handed over it to a third party that paid 20,000 Yuan. When the third party decorated the house, the leaser found and requested to take the house back for invalidation of the contract. The third party reported to the criminal police department of the police station for being swindled. The police found from investigation that the third party was not swindled and gave a notice about not registering the case. The third party felt very dissatisfied and complained to the municipal public security bureau. The municipal public security bureau found from investigation that this case was not registered with the approval of the legal department, so the municipal public security bureau told the police just to maintain stability. Soon, the third party petitioned to the municipal public security bureau and leaders were so annoyed that they criticized subordinates and requested the police to get in touch with the procuratorate and the court to solve the problems. The police took the third party to the procuratorate and the procuratorate considered it was not a fraud and refused to accept this case after reading the archives. After that, the third party petitioned to the procuratorate, but in vain. Then, the third party petitioned to the public security bureau again. The police got in touch with a lawyer and asked him to file a lawsuit to the court. The third party was reluctant to do so by the excuse of a long time and legal cost, execution fee and property preservation fee. He resolutely requested the police station to offer a solution, or he would continue with the petition.

Whereas there is seldom a threshold for accepting a case, common people are willing to ask for help from the police when they get in trouble and even they push cases, for which other departments should be responsible, to police station. Although it is legally stipulated that police stations can refuse to accept such cases and tell the parties involved to ask for help from relevant departments, the parties involved consider such refusal as nonfeasance and consequently they petition to the superior public security department. Though unreasonable, petition is “a negative event” in the current situation and the superior will request police station to “handle them properly”. Then, trifle cases pour into the petition channel. An old peasant from Hebei petitioned in Beijing because he lost a sheep and felt dissatisfied with the handling result of local public security organ (Li 2007). For police station, slightly difficult case and the police’s wording and action may result in petition (Wang 2011). Similar situations are often seen and heard in police station and the police are tired of dealing with them. If the aforesaid things just increase the police’s workload, making excessive requirements to the police and even beating and abusing the

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police publicly seriously damage their self-esteem and authority of the public security department. The public security organ is a legal violence organ of the state and they can exercise the compulsory power when necessary. But in the current situation, public petition may be easily caused even though the police take justified compulsory action. The parties involved do not care whether their behaviors are reasonable, and they will impose pressure upon the police through petition once their appeals are not fully satisfied. Fearing that petition will cause unnecessary trouble, grassroots police become increasingly weak and they try to avoid compulsory measures unless superiors offer definite support, even though such compulsory measures are necessary in most cases. Li Chenghua from the criminal police team complained to me, “Current law enforcement environment is poor and the parties involved petition for no reason. Whether irrational or rational petition, the police need to maintain stability. Otherwise, leader will blame them. I have to handle three cases now. One is a case that happened 11 years ago. Younger brother and sister-in-law of the parties involved were killed. For lack of clue, the police could not solve the case and the petitioner kept petitioning to Beijing. I heard that he petitioned to Beijing again recently. We had personnel stationed Beijing and tried to negotiate with him not to register the case. Otherwise, the leader will punish us. There are two other cases. One is a fraud case and the other is a robbery case in progress. Indeed, we should be responsible for the three cases, but not all cases can be solved. There are also cases that cannot be solved in America”. “We police fear petition most, since we will be very passive. Last year, people blocked the track to prevent the coal train, since they thought coal powder affected their life. We mediated three times, but in vain. Finally, we had to take them away forcibly. In that case, we must have physical contact with them and they felt dissatisfied and accused the public security organ”.

Grassroots police are actively finding a way to overcome the difficulties in the petition. They think deeply and believe that petition will decrease sharply if public security department can solve the difficulty in obtaining evidence. Therefore, grassroots police value collection of evidence more and more while handling a case, especially they record the law enforcement site using DV technology in real time. However, the police will find soon, since the parties involved and relevant witnesses often refuse

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to testify and many cases will have loopholes. For cases with a lack of evidence, the police can neither get a testimony compulsorily nor delay solving them and consequently the police will be caught in a dilemma. Such loopholes lay the foundation for petitions against the police. The essence of the problem is that there are not as abundant resources to handle public security cases as criminal cases and a complex connection between public security case and social network makes it difficult to obtain evidence. As a matter of fact, the parties involved can “deny” even though the police have obtained adequate evidence and even some claim that the police’s evidence is falsified. If the parties involved are willing, they can impose pressure upon the police through petition and almost all petitions will work. More and more people are attracted by petition channel and consequently routine right relief mechanisms are marginalized. No doubt, the current petition mechanism has been “excessively politicalized”. Trifles cannot be solved without approval or written instructions of leaders of the central government and some problems that can be solved through the administrative and judicial procedures become political issues. Problems that are reflected by petition are valued by superiors or solved in a special way because peasant takes “political actions” (Zhao 2007). The greatest consequence of excessive politicization of petition is the rise of various irrational petitions, which causes a heavy burden to grassroots police, because they cannot solve the problems arising from irrational petition at all and these problems occupy plenty of police resources obviously. Chen Liangbao, a member of the Public Security Brigade told me that grassroots police feared irrational petition most. He considered it as the primary problem of grassroots police station. “We fear not hard work but irrational petition. If the police indeed have problems, they should be investigated and punished. The problem is that most petitioners request us to solve the problems that cannot be solved at the grassroots level and even by superiors. The key is that many problems should not be solved by us or are unreasonable, how to solve them? In case of a petition, we will get marked down and ranked every month. Our police station has more than ten irrational petition cases, which consume a lot of governance resources”.

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Judge “the Judge” In the petition system, the superior unit takes a special position. Firstly, it hopes to control the subordinate unit through petition and give right relief to petitioner, which identifies the superior unit as “a judge” to decide between the petitioner and the subordinate unit. Then, in the administrative system, interests of the superior unit and the subordinate unit are not completely separate. In most cases, the superior unit can realize their interests based on the subordinate unit’s work, so superior units and subordinate units are a community of interest to some extent and the superior unit cannot be exempted from the responsibility for the subordinate unit’s fault. Finally, the superior unit has its own superior unit. If they do not deal with the subordinate unit’s petition properly, they are likely to get involved in the petition due to further petitions. In this sense, the superior unit also has the identity of “the judged”. Due to this triple relation, the superior unit cannot deal with a petition easier than the subordinate unit. The petition system is reasonable because it provides the following channel. After the interests of common people are damaged by the grassroots government, when effective relief cannot be provided through normal juridical relief, the parties involved can appeal to the superior unit and the superior unit can introduce higher power intervention through problem politicization to redress an injustice. The superior unit is willing to interfere with the power process of subordinate units because they can monitor subordinate units to maintain the legality of their power. When common people petition to the superior unit, the superior unit, as a “judge”, must carry out investigations and adopt treatment measures. It is commonly assumed that the superior unit, as the judge, will treat the parties involved according to the principle of justice. Incompetent subordinate officials will be punished or irrational petitioners will be governed. Nevertheless, a real power process is much more complex and superior units and the subordinate units are not always differentiated so clearly. With county-township-village relationship as an example, “in fact, county-level power is closely ‘surrounded’ by township and village-level cadres. If there are not numerous complaints that result in their coerced intervention, generally they have limited reason and motive to intervene with village affairs directly. They rarely destroy grassroots governance order of township and village-level control actively. Instead, they badly need help of grassroots cadres to complete their plans and even need

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‘protection’ of the isolation belt to prevent excessive civil intervention” (Zhang 2000). In the 1980s and 1990s, the superior government relies on grassroots government to collect taxes and dues. Undoubtedly, the superior government cannot get in touch with tens of thousands of peasant households without help of grassroots government. It is just because of such interest relation that governments at different levels make up a community of interest and the superior government prefers to turn a blind eye to some faults made by grassroots government. In a very long period of time, public security organs also make up a similar community of interest. Before the state intensifies transfer payment, income of grassroots public security organ is mainly from various revenues. Whereas superior public security organ needs to complete the tasks with the help of grassroots organ, and they cannot offer financial guarantee, the superior unit is often tolerant of minor infractions of grassroots units when they create income. It is an important reason that grassroots public security organs “gained extreme notoriety” before 2000. These problems damaged legality of state power day by day, so the central government released “five prohibitions” in 2003 and carried out special governance movement for petition against the police in 2003 and carried out great petition movement in 2005 to break the community of interest among local units at different levels. Intensification of transfer payment makes self-income of grassroots public security organs illegal. To complete the tasks and offer financial guarantee simultaneously, the superior unit intensifies the control ability of grassroots unit. The superior unit can be justified and confident to punish petition arising from fault of grassroots unit. Obviously, it is the goal that policing reform movement aims to achieve. However, it is surprising that the dependence on the governance system between superior and subordinate units is broken, but the dependence on the petition system has always been there. Once the petitioner complains to the higher unit, subordinate units should assume the responsibility. After all, power of subordinate units is granted by the superior unit and the superior unit should be responsible for their faults like parents are responsible for their children’s faults. For this reason, the superior unit presents two types of contradictory appeals. More petitions are good for intensifying monitoring of subordinate unit and fewer petitions are good for avoiding getting involved in a petition. When the number of petitions keeps rising, the second type of appeals obviously gets the upper hand, namely subordinate unit is

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requested to avoid petition events as far as possible. In this aspect, a new community of interest made up of superior and subordinate units is “a community of interest free of petition”. Then, superior and subordinate units are apt to shift the responsibility for petition event to each other. The subordinate unit says: “We can solve the problems as long as the superior unit clarifies their position”, the superior unit says: “You handle the procedures, we have no opinions” (Zhang 2010). At last, the petitioner has to petition to the higher unit and even the central government since their appeals are not satisfied. Then, whether petition event is just or not becomes not so significant and the key is how to prevent a petition event. In order not to get involved in a petition, the superior unit requests grassroots unit to “keep your own people in line” and grassroots unit will undertake the responsibility if petitioner is out of control. Team leader Shen Qiang shared a lot of problems of petitions against the police with me and he considered it a magic formula and criterion for current public security work. “The problem is that the superior unit is unlikely to re-investigate a case but order grassroots unit to handle it and grassroots unit will get marked down in case of a petition”. Shen Qiang said, “The real purpose of petitioner is to get money. Most petitions are unreasonable. Grassroots police make efforts to investigate and mediate a case, but superiors do not support but blame them and consequently grassroots unit becomes passive. When we are handling a case, superiors ask us a lot of questions. As a result, we can do nothing well. In the ancient times, law had advantages. Petitioner will be beaten to prevent false accusation. But now there are not limitations and anyone can make trouble.”

It is almost impossible for the superior unit to investigate every petition event personally. They can just request grassroots unit to handle a case properly. They do not care how to handle a case properly but no petition will be caused. As the judge, the superior unit has made another judgment. They no longer judge whether the petitioner is right or wrong but whether the subordinate unit has effectively controlled petition. If petition is controlled effectively, grassroots unit has no fault, otherwise, they have a fault. “In the past, local government is responsible for their administrative behavior only, but now, they should be responsible for all petitions” (He 2011). Thus, superior still will attribute petition to grassroots police, even if evidence proves that grassroots police is not directly connected to petition.

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Policeman Yu Xiaoli told me a story that he experienced. Before policing reform, Feng Wu was the director of the General Affairs Office of the branch, who was responsible for handling a petition case. Woman A and her elder brother B came into blows for a few bungalows of their mother and A got fracture in her hand and a slight wound. B was willing to reconciliate with A by 200,000 Yuan. However, A claimed for 1 million Yuan and declared that her eyes were damaged. Upon medical evaluation, her eyes were normal, but A persisted. After the police detained B, A kept petitioning by requesting to detain her younger sister C and declaring that C also beat her, but investigation showed that C didn’t get involved. A claimed for compensation of 1 million Yuan from B and C. After A petitioned to the municipal public security bureau, the bureau shifted this case to Linxiang Police Station and Feng Wu was responsible. In the mediation process, Feng Wu was abused by A for no reason, saying that leaders of the municipal public security bureau named Feng Wu “a coward”. Feng Wu flew into a rage and argue that he was not “a coward”. A recorded the entire process and accused Feng Wu of abusing her to the directorgeneral by the record. Knowing that the fact was not as what A described, the director-general still consoled A and criticized Feng Wu severely. “Why did you answer back? Why didn’t you keep silent?” He requested Feng Wu to prepare written self-criticism and apologize to A.

To reduce petitions, higher authorities have formulated various incentive and punishment measures for subordinate units, among which the most common way is to assess the petition quantity. That is, register and rank the petitions of every subordinate unit monthly and yearly and give rewards to those that come out top and punishments to those that come out bottom. In the petition governance movement, the Ministry of Public Security requests to include the situation and effect of special petition governance in the petition assessment, practice monthly notification system, circulate a notice of criticism on those that are sluggish and ineffective and praise those that work effectively and perform well. The public security bureau of A City actively responds and requests all units to solve more than 95% of petition cases, which were assigned by higher authorities in current year, within the time specified by higher authorities, with the quantity of provincial-level petitions to Beijing decreasing significantly. For units that cannot complete the tasks one time and cannot turn the passive situation, the municipal public security bureau will carry

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out one ballot veto system for year-end performance appraisal. The public security bureau of A City formulates concrete assessment scheme for the petition governance. Handle reasonable appeals of complainants or petitioners within the specified time. Otherwise, be sure to stabilize the complainant or petitioner and try to handle petition cases earlier. Those that do not handle cases approved by leaders within the specified time or do not submit materials as approved should get marked down by 10 points. Relevant units that do not rectify law enforcement faults or problems such as nonstandard law enforcement effectively and do not solve the problems reflected by the complainant and consequently the complainant petitions to the municipal public security bureau and other departments again should get marked down by 20 points. Those that fail to control the key persons who intend to petition to the public security organ and thus are criticized for provincial-level petition and petition to Beijing should get marked down by 30 points and 20 points respectively. Cases involving public complaints (including letters, visits and public complaints approved by the municipal public security bureau or above), which are verified by the Ministry of Public Security, the provincial public security department and the municipal public security bureau and for which the police indeed have law enforcement faults and a letter of confirmation has been issued, should get marked down by 100 points, 50 points and 20 points respectively. Those that indeed involve nonstandard law enforcement should get marked down by 50 points, 30 points and 15 points respectively. Those, for which the Ministry of Public Security, the provincial public security department and the municipal public security bureau circulate a notice of criticism, should get marked down by 30 points, 10 points and 5 points respectively. Cases, which are identified by the Ministry of Public Security, the provincial public security department and the municipal public security bureau with law enforcement faults and nonstandard law enforcement and for which corrections are made in 30 days and petition is stopped, will get marked by 30 points, 20 points and 15 points respectively.

Specific to the superior unit’s petition assessment requirements, Linxiang Police Station also formulated an assessment scheme: If repeat petitions are filed to Beijing, provincial or municipal authorities after January 1, 2011 due to leader’s underestimate, the police’s irresponsibility and delay, the responsible unit should get marked down by 50 points,

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30 points and 10 points in performance appraisal. If new petition is caused by the police’s nonfeasance, misconduct, low efficiency, bad attitude, unfair treatment and malpractice and consequently petition to Beijing, provinciallevel petition and municipal-level petition are caused, responsible unit and responsible police should get marked down by 30 points, 20 points and 10 points respectively.

The penalty point system imposes great pressure on grassroots police. Although the assessment scheme of units at different levels emphasize that the penalty points are targeted at the petitions caused by the faults of the police, under the pressure of “petition elimination”, the police and subordinate units will get marked down in case of a petition that is not really caused by the police’s fault. Jinhua was born in Linxiang. She petitioned repeatedly that former Liuxiang Police Station reported a false injury case on December 22, 1990 and detained her husband Daniu for a month. On December 20, 1990, the police took away her husband, who was taking their son to see a doctor at the hospital, and her son was frightened and later died. The former branch investigated this case in May 2010 and concluded that it was not related to the public security organ. After that, the municipal public security bureau carried out investigation and identified no problems. However, Jinhua kept petitioning, with municipal-level petition twice in June 2011 and once in July 2011. The municipal public security bureau deducted points of Linxiang Police Station each time, since it didn’t effectively stabilize the petition and consequently repeat petitions were caused.

In the petition system, the superior unit adopts “petition elimination” strategy and requests the subordinate unit to stabilize the petitioner instead of judging whether petition event is right or wrong because the superior unit is a subject of interest. Once the superior unit offends the petitioner, the petitioner may complain to a higher authority. In this aspect, the superior unit is both a judge and the judged and it is apt to be the petitioned and be judged by a higher authority in the infinite petition process (He 2006). Because the logic of “Judge the judged”, the superior unit tries not to judge petition cases for self-protection and almost all petition cases are assigned to subordinate unit. Likewise, the subordinate unit will assign these cases to lower units and finally grassroots police will bear the pressure. The superior units tend to eliminate petition cases within its jurisdiction and they do not care how grassroots police handle, on

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the condition that the subordinate unit’s “petition elimination” measure cannot have a negative impact on the superior unit.

Formation of “Petition Temptation” Under the logic of zero tolerance policy and “no-fault punishment” of the superior unit, grassroots police stations and police have to make every endeavor to conceal petition event. In the process of “petition elimination”, they’d better effectively resolve contradictions and persuade the petitioner “to stop petitioning”. However, the police soon find that they can persuade reasonable petitioner to stop petitioning, but for irrational petitions, they can hardly resolve the problems whatever they do, since the petitioner’s appeals are often beyond their ability. Aware of it, the police have to adopt other measures and try to stabilize the petitioner. If the superior unit shows sympathy for the petitioner since they can strengthen control over the grassroots unit through petition, as a pure “defendant”, the grassroots unit appears very impatient with all petitioners. In the police’s point of view, the petitioner makes unnecessary trouble through complaining to the superior unit. In fact, if the petitioner is too persistent and even unreasonable, the grassroots unit will dislike them and even the superior unit will detest and reject them, which has never changed throughout the ages. In ancient times, the unsatisfying and persistent “petitioner” was “an extremely annoying person” for the provincial governor and prefecture/county magistrate, since “it’d rather contain than support” their appeals (Jonathan 2004). For the superior unit, the tension and balance between power struggle of the parties involved and the administrative body’s pursuit of order was the core of petition relief mechanism (Ying 2004) and such tension was often partial to the pursuit of administrative order in front of persistent petitioners. Thus, the superior unit often tacitly permitted the grassroots unit to “conceal the true state of affairs from above and below” using a series of measures to obstruct information and control risk to conceal petition events. In this sense, “a basic skill of local cadres is to handle problems effectively” (Ying 2001). Among all measures to obstruct information, violence has always been the most deterrent weapon. No matter such violence is imposed physically or spiritually, pain or fear of pain will often make people that know the information shut up. Undoubtedly, the grassroots unit often obstructs the petitioner’s action by violence. These violent measures have formed

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a set of common “petition interception” systems and even produced a series of interest industry chains. Numerous petitioners not only reflect an event but also complain to the superior unit about their sufferings in the petition process, which are mostly caused by the grassroots unit. Even though the central government has prohibited violent petition interception very early, the media is enthusiastic in reporting them and grassroots units have greatly reduced violent petition interception, such events still cannot be completely eradicated. Violent petition interception cannot be completely eradicated for many reasons. Researchers attribute it to the shortcomings of the petition system. In their mind, the crux of the petition system is that it tries to make government sectors that may infringe public rights and interests to offer relief to the public. Such completely denied explanation makes no sense, because any system has disadvantages. China’s petition system has been carried down until now not only for someone’s will but mainly because it caters to social needs. Actually, violent petition interception emerges with alienation of the petition system and transformation of the petition system targeted at “petition elimination” instead of “problem solving” is bound to arouse the need for violence. Nevertheless, as the state gradually strikes violence, especially includes it in juridical control, and media gets involved, grassroots unit undoubtedly will bear great risks for violent petition interception. After violent measure is banned, the grassroots unit finds that they are increasingly helpless to stabilize the petitioner. The petitioner no longer fears the grassroots unit. They can petition at will and raise various unreasonable appeals. Annoying grassroots unit prefers to consider that numerous petitioners, especially those repeated petitioners, have mental problems. “Making petitioner mentally ill” is not only an emotional expression that the grassroots unit detests the petitioner but also a way to make petition governance legal using coercive measure. Maybe the key is that the grassroots unit hopes to be liberated from the pressure of the petition accountability system. Now that petition is mentally ill, undoubtedly their petition behaviors cannot be attributed to the grassroots unit. For public security department, some petitioners against the police “are mentally ill, distrust others, disagree with the government, feel dissatisfied with legal and rational petition results, continue with petition by unreasonable requirements and even take petition as spiritual

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ballast and a financial source” (Xu 2002). In April 2009, Sun Dongdong, an expert and a committee member of the Ministry of Health and the director of the Judicial Authentication Office of Peking University, said in an interview, “I dare to say responsibly that at least above 99% of repeated petitioners are mentally ill and they all have paranoid disorder” (Fang 2011), which immediately aroused a disturbance of netizens. Some researchers point out that the essence of “being psychotic” is the infringement of power on public rights in the name of public order, “unbridled public power floods in the soil of right and inundates the concept of serving people and makes people of justice homeless” (Fang 2011). The most fundamental counterattack is from doubts about psychiatry, “it studies human’s soul and spirit, but it is a very profound and even fathomless field. Logically, human can never invent a science to fully understand their spirit” (Qiu 2009). No doubt, it is unfeasible to endow the police with the power to coerce the petitioner to conduct a psychiatric evaluation. In fact, the truth of people’s spirit and body is complicated and confusing and the petitioner often stands that the truth of the body cannot be judged only through medical evaluation, since many petitions have been caused by different medical evaluation results. According to my research, some petitioners, especially those repeated petitioners, indeed have mental problems or mental disorder. They are often very stubborn and refuse to listen to others’ opinions. Sometimes they are even not aware of their appeals, so they should be “a medical psychopath”. Some petitioners are deemed as a psychopath and they act like a psychopath, but they rack their brains in the petition process. The most common is petitioners who have no mental problems but make trouble, since they always seek personal interests through irrational petition, so they are deemed as “psychopaths”. Such type of psychopaths can be named “sociological psychopath” and used to identify those “strange persons” or “bad persons” not totally the same as most people. In this sense, “psychopath” in the eye of the police mainly refers to “irrational petitioner”. Even though all petitioners were “psychopaths”, the police still cannot restrict them, since petitioner’s “being psychotic” is obviously politically incorrect in the current society when human right discourse dominates. Therefore, the police still must respond to petition that emerges in large numbers. When violent petition interception is illegal, grassroots police station and police mostly bribe the petitioner to satisfy their appeals so that they will sympathize with the police and abandon the petition.

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Whereas grassroots police stations and the police fear petitions, especially leapfrog petitions and petitions to Beijing. To “eliminate petition”, they are willing to “pay money for safety”. Then, the petition system forms a strange type of “petition temptation”. When the petition cost is nearly zero and the police’s coercive measure seldom works, the petitioner has strong negotiation ability and they can gain illegitimate interests through coercing police station. Under the incentive of “petition temptation”, various unreasonable appeals pour into the petition channel.

Make an Irrational Petition The direct cause of petition irrationalization is that extra benefits can be obtained through petition. The petition is not only the last choice for the wronged to seek relief but also an important means to seek personal interests and make trouble out of nothing. It should be noted that it does not mean that there is no wronged person among petitioners, but more and more irrational petitions emerge in large numbers under the incentive of “petition temptation” and form a new petition situation. By the attitude that “the superior unit is unwilling to uncover petition” and the weak point that “grassroots unit does not have a better way to obstruct petition other than bribery”, it is very easy for people to make various irrational petitions as long as they are willing to.1 Chen Shengli from the Public Security Brigade thought that petition against the police emerged in large numbers from 2005 and 2006 mainly for two reasons. Firstly, urbanization occupied a lot of land and many petitions were caused by land acquisition. Secondly, government formed a vicious circle to reconcile the petitioner and meet their requirements. “The central government inclines to trust the petitioner other than the police”. The problem was that what if the petitioner was wrong? Was there a method to distinguish from the right and the wrong? Chen Shengli told me that abnormal petitions mainly refer to leapfrog petition, so all petitions

1 In the sensitive period, grassroots units often arranged a lot of persons to closely watch key petitioners 24 hours a day. Some places formed “1 + X” watch mode and adopted measures such as regional monitoring. Key petitioners sew through what grassroots units thought, mastered their weaknesses and used them to keep making unreasonable requests such as travel and claims, and grassroots units had to meet their requests. After that, key petitioners boasted everywhere and more petitioners followed them. As a result, an increasingly bigger vicious cycle was formed (Chen et al. 2011).

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to Beijing were abnormal petitions. Pulling the banner in the public area and gathering a crowd to engage in an affray also belonged to abnormal petitions. Irrational petition mainly referred to unreasonable petition, which was less serious than abnormal petitions in nature. Thus, abnormal petitions were often punished by warning for the first time, detention for the second time and reeducation through labor for the third time. In fact, whether abnormal petitions were punished was decided by superior and police station and police had no power of decision. Particularly, reeducation through labor required complex procedures and should be registered at the provincial level. A few days ago, we reeducated a women who engaged in abnormal petitions, since she was unsatisfied with acquisition of homestead. She petitioned to Beijing more than once and leaders were annoyed and reeducated her through labor. However, the work camp was reluctant to accept such persons for fear that she would misguide others and make trouble.

Grassroots police consider the current government is too weak that some “bad persons” may have a chance to make trouble. Such “bad persons” use the tense stance of petition to raise various exorbitant requests to grassroots units. The petitioner raises exorbitant appeals as they wish, price themselves out of the market groundlessly and keep petitioning due to dissatisfaction. As a result, so-called “threatening petition” occurs and it started to increase day by day after local government implemented “petition acceptance” system in 2003. After the State Council announced to abolish the system of handling indigent migrants on June 20, 2003, numerous petitioners gathered in Beijing, which brought huge pressure to Beijing’s stability. Since then, the state has started to implement the system that local government “accept petitions” in Beijing according to localization management principle (Rao et al. 2011). Some researchers named such irrational petitions as “profit-driven petitions” (Chang 2012). Through making irrational petition, the petitioner can make a case become “a problem” and translate cases that should not be accepted by public security organs into “petition-based public security cases”. In addition, another purpose of making irrational petitions is to impose pressure upon the police to ask a higher price in the mediation process. It may be “the essence” of irrational petitions and has been adopted by more and more petitioners.

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A middle-aged couple asked the police to handle the person who beat the husband the other day, but the police could not do so for lack of evidence. “I have evidence and I have identified my wound.” “You said that he beat you, but he denied. Your witness is from the same village, so we cannot adopt his testimony.” “I cannot be beaten in vain. I spent more than two thousands Yuan on treating my wound.” Police Qian Kun told me privately that he was not wounded at all but he got a kick. It didn’t cost so much. He just wanted to blackmail more money. “If you claim for medical expenses, go asking for help from the court.” “I won’t, I will ask for help from the municipal public security bureau. I don’t believe that I have no place to reason.” “You can, you have the right to do so.” The couple went out for a while and returned back to continued to quarrel with the police. Qian Kun had no other choices but called the opposite side to the police substation. Qian Kun mediated for the third time. Both parties quarreled about what happened before immediately after they met. But for the police, what happened before was not important and the key was whether the opposite site beat him, how he beat him and how seriously they were injured. The opposite side persisted that he didn’t beat him and declared that they just wanted to blackmail. After they quarreled for a while, Qian Kun talked to them separately and the opposite side agreed to compensate 500 Yuan. The couple disagreed and claimed for at least 2000 Yuan. Then, the opposite site agreed to compensate 1000 Yuan, or they can sue to the court. The husband meditated and asked his wife. But his wife disagreed and persisted in claiming for at least 2000 Yuan. Qian Kun failed to mediate and asked both parties to sign, which indicated that the police has mediated and both parties could not reach a consensus. Qian Kun told the couple that they could sue to the court later. “I won’t sue him. I will petition to the director-general on Wednesday.” “You can, you have the right to do so.” After that, I chatted with Qian Kun for a while. “What if they really petitioned?” “The superior unit will ask us to mediate again and again. If it doesn’t work, the police station or we may have to pay for it. Nowadays, people will keep making trouble if we don’t meet their requirements!”

To improve the effectiveness of irrational petitions, petitioners also need to master some strategies, of which the foremost is to intensify the momentum of petition and impose pressure upon grassroots police in

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various ways. In addition to making trouble continuously, petitioners also adopt two strategies. One strategy is “sue to different departments for one case and be on the upgrade everywhere”. Petitioners not only petition to public security organs and such organs as the Party committee, government, discipline inspection commission, procuratorate, court, the NPC and the CPPCC, but also file appeals to the court or the procuratorial organ according to legal provisions. They try to draw their attention in this way and urge the department to assign and supervise the case, causing that petitions against police are mixed up with other petitions and more than one department accept and supervise to handle the same case (Wang 2008). The other strategy is “self-abuse”. The petitioner directly causes huge pressure from public opinions to police station and the police by such violent means as autotomy, self-burning, jumping from a building, drowning or homicide to meet their unreasonable requirements. The police of Linxiang Police Station cannot bear it, since a great political event will be caused in case of personal death. Policeman Dong Shao encountered such a problem that the petitioner threatened to jump from the second floor of a building if his requirements were not met. In his mind, the most important thing for the police is to “keep an eye on the petitioner” so that police cannot allow the abuse happen.

References Chang Qian. 2012. Profit-Driven Petition, Profit-Driven Brokerage and Grassroots Social Participation. Southeast Academic Research (3). Chen Xiaojun, et al. 2011. Research on Peasant’s Petition and Social Stability, p. 370. Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press. Fang Qingxia. 2011. Thinking on Sociology of Law for Petitioner’s “Being Psychotic” Phenomenon. Hebei Law Science (1). He Hairen 2006. Function Transformation and Destiny of Petition Relief. Journal of Law Application (6). He Xuefeng. 2011. Analysis of the Relationship Between State and Peasant-With Peasant’s Petition as the Source of Consciousness. Tianjin Social Sciences (4). Jonathan Ocko. 2004. Make Every Endeavor to Go to Beijing: Beijing Petition in the Qing Dynasty. From Gaodaoyun et al. Discussion about Traditions of Chinese Law by American Scholars (Revised and Enlarged Edition) , p. 530. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press. Li Hongbo. 2007. Petition in the Course of Legal Modernization, 177. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press.

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Qiu Feng. 2009. Why Is Professor Sun Dongdong Wrong? 21st Century Business Herald, April 9. Rao Jing et al. 2011. “Threatening Petition”-Analysis Framework of Peasant’s Petition under Grassroots Political Logic. China Rural Survey (3). Wang Doudou. 2011. Elimination of Cause of Petition against the Police. Jurisprudence Daily, November 29. Wang Jinzhong. 2008. Understanding of Petition of Public Security Organ (I). Journal of Liaoning Police Academy (2). Xu Jianying. 2002. Several Thoughts on Realizing Legalization of Petition of Public Security Organ. Zhejiang Police College Journal (6). Ying Xing. 2001. Story of Petition of River Immigrants: From “Ask for an Explanation” to “Handling Problems”, p. 152. Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company. Ying Xing. 2004. Petition Relief as Special Administrative Relief. Chinese Journal of Law (3). Zhang Jing. 2000. Grassroots Political Power: Rural System Problems, pp. 187– 188. Hangzhou: Zhejiang People’s Publishing House. Zhang Zhongwen. 2010. Discussion About Petition of Public Security Organ, p. 100. Beijing: China Publishing House. Zhao Shukai. 2007. Peasant’s Petition in 1/4 of the Century. China Development Observation (11).

CHAPTER 7

“Petition” Against “Petition”

More and more irrational petitions occur under the incentive of “petition temptation”. In addition, rational petitions will quickly turn to irrational petitions due to a great demonstration effect of irrational petitions. Then, “irrationalization of petition” becomes an irreversible process, fundamentally changing the nature of the petition system.

“The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease” In the current situation, petitioners who “know how to make trouble” and “make a big trouble” can quickly satisfy their appeals, but honest petitioners can hardly arouse concern. Therefore, all petitioners compete to show their skills to “make trouble” and make an impact to arouse leader’s special concern. Petition is no longer a right relief approach for the wronged but gradually becomes a political means to seek interests. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease”, whether hungry or not, petitioners who cry louder have a chance to eat more. Here is a case about Huang and Pan. On February 4, 2011, Pan and Huang had a dispute in a traffic collision and they beat each other. On February 14, 2011, Huang was identified with a minor wound. The case was registered on February 15, 2011, suspect Pan was detained at 7:00 pm on February 15, Pan’s elder brother

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 117 Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Huihuang, Petition Against the Police, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0_7

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filed an application for re-identification on February 16, 2011 and he revoked the application on February 17, 2011. The case was submitted to the procuratorate at 10:00 am on February 18, 2011. Pan’s elder brother raised objections to Huang’s injury at 16:40 on February 18, 2011 by a request for re-identification. The police communicated with the procuratorate timely and the procuratorate asked the public security organ to conduct re-identification in the investigation stage. February 19 and 20, 2011 was Saturday and Sunday. At 11:00 am on February 21, 2011, three policemen accompanied Huang and Pan to conduct medicolegal expertise at the first affiliated hospital of XX University. On February 25, 2011, the procuratorate refused to approve an arrest by an excuse that the identification result was not obtained and the cause of the case was not clarified. On February 26, Pan handled the procedures for obtaining a guarantor pending trial. At 3:40 pm on February 28, 2011, policeman Xu contacted XX verification center of forensic medicine and the center told that the results had been issued. On February 28, 2011, Pan filed an application for reidentification of Huang’s injury. At 10:00 am on March 1, Xu reported the situation of the case to the supervision team. Now, Huang reflects that the police handle the procedures for getting a guarantor pending trial against the rule and Pan reflects that the police make a false identification jointly with the forensic expert. Both parties petition to the municipal public security bureau.

In Linxiang Police Station, Huang’s case is well-known, since he petitioned everywhere and many policemen were deeply troubled. Actually, the police station intended to solve the case if Huang claimed for a reasonable amount. Now, Shen Qiang is mainly responsible for winning Huang’s support, trying every means to lower his requirements and preventing him from petitioning to superior authorities. One year ago, Huang, a crippled man, got in trouble with Pan and others and was beaten. He paid medical expenses of 6000 Yuan. Public Security Team leader Shen Qiang accepted the case. Huang requested the opposite side Pan to pay 1 million Yuan for compensation. After mediation, Huang lowered the claim to 200,000 Yuan, but Pan disagreed. Huang kept petitioning. This morning, Huang came to the police station again, with his wife, holding a walking stick. Shen Qiang brought him to the room and wanted to have a talk with him. Huang was in high spirits in the beginning,

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requesting to handle the case today or petitioning to Beijing tomorrow. Shen Qiang gave him a cigarette and took out a lighter to ignite it. He tried to say kind words to stabilize him. He said, “Huang, the director came back the day before yesterday and I will talk to him tomorrow. Please wait and I will make a reply in a week.” Huang got angry, “I cannot wait, I have waited for more than a year, but it is useless. After all, you have no decision-making power and the police station cannot solve this problem.” Shen Qiang tried to persuade his wife, “please understand us and just wait for another week.” Huang’s wife was quite calm, saying, “All right, but we will petition to the municipal public security bureau tomorrow. We will also petition to the director-general the day after tomorrow.” Huang said, “I will not take his money this time, I just want him imprisoned.” His wife patted him and told him to shut up. After the police tried every possible way to persuade him, Huang raised his voice and was ready to go. Shen Qiang stopped and strenuously persuaded him, but in vain. Seeing Huang walking out, Shen Qiang drove a car to send him home humbly. After that, Team Leader Shen Qiang told me that Huang had disputes with five persons. They detained one person and Huang felt very dissatisfied and requested to detain all of them. The police told Huang that they may detain another four people after investigation, but Huang asked to detain them before investigation. “We cannot do so”, Shen Qiang shook his head helplessly, “The problem is that he asked for too much money. If he asked for 20,000 Yuan, the police station would have given him”.

Huang knows what the police think, so he wants to petition again and again, especially petition to Beijing in the special period, so that the police station will make a greater concession. After all, he has nothing to do now and he can go to the provincial capital and Beijing and claim the travel expenses from the police station, so why not? However, Shen Qiang also has to appease the opposite side Pan, who keeps petitioning as well. Pan and his elder brother kept raising objections to injury identification just to delay handling of the case. To further extend influence, Pan also petitioned. Though unreasonable, his appeals would have influence and at least he could cope with Huang’s petition strategy. I checked relevant petition archives and found that Pan’s petition process was almost identical to Huang’s. In August 2011, Huang petitioned to the municipal public security bureau. In September 2011, Pan did so and Huang petitioned to the municipal public security bureau again. In November 2011, Pan petitioned to the provincial public security department and Huang did so soon. As a result, the police suffered higher and higher

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pressure. It is strange that it has become insignificant whether the parties involved are right or wrong once they petition, and the police become the only “faulty” party. In the superior’s viewpoint, grassroots police should take on the responsibility for not controlling the petitioner and handling the case properly. The confrontation among petitioners turns to a game between the petitioner and the police by virtue of the superior’s concern. Although the police indeed make a lot of mistakes while handling a case, especially there are obvious disadvantages in procedure. Nevertheless, it is not the crux of the matter. Leader really concerns about not whether the petitioner is right or wrong but why petition event is not controlled. In the case of petition, the superior always can find faults of the police while handling a case to blame them and supervise them to maintain stability. Then, the police turn to a party involving the case from the handler, and a public security case turns to the game process where the police and the petitioner “fight a battle of wits and courage”.

Irrationalization of Rational Petition It must be pointed out that many people indeed petition for being wronged and they take petition as the last means to defend to reveal the truth and pursue justice. Such right safeguarding petition is obviously reasonable and shows the legality of the petition system. However, under the incentive of “petition temptation”, more and more rational petitions turn to irrational petitions. There are at least four different types of irrationalized rational petitions. The first type is to raise new appeals irrelevant to the original case when appeals of rational petition cannot be met temporarily. In petitions against the police, especially in a criminal case, petition is mostly caused because public security organ cannot solve a case according to the current conditions. Petition is aimed at knowing the progress of a case or supervising the police to solve a case more actively. Although such type of petitions also can be called “irresponsible petition”, the petitioner’s appeals are not totally unreasonable. The public security department often shows more sympathy for the victim and their families. However, not every case can be solved timely and even some become a pending case, and the petitioner cannot achieve the expected result. Influenced by irrational petitions, some rational petitioners raise new requests to the public security department when their appeals cannot be met. Last, new

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appeals become a new power for the petitioner and a rational petition turns to an irrational petition. On April 25, 2000, Zhang Shun and Niu San disputed with and beat each other due to job problems. Upon medical identification, Niu San got serious injury. Suspect Zhang Shun obtained a guarantor pending trial and escaped after the procuratorate refused to approve an arrest and then he was wanted online. Niu San has been paralyzed in bed until now. Yi Ting, Niu San’s wife, kept petitioning to the municipal public security bureau and the provincial public security department and requested to bring Zhang Shun to justice as quickly as possible. The leader of the municipal public security bureau highly valued this case and requested to solve the case as soon as possible. After policing reform, Linxiang Police Station established a special investigating team to carefully comb clues and evidence of the case. Afterwards, Yi Ting raised a new appeal. In 1999, Niu San’s daughter aged 11 and son aged 8 were drowned while swimming in the forest park and she requested the public security organ to handle the case. Besides, she petitioned to several departments for this. Although it had nothing to do with the public security organ, Linxiang Police Station identified her as a person in need and the leader visit her on holidays and festivals in consideration of her poor family conditions. When Yi Ting is emotionally stable and she may promised to stop leapfrog petition.

In fact, Yi Ting has never planned to stop petitioning. She found it was not a bad thing that Niu San’s case was not solved, since at least she could raise other requests to the public security organ. Thus, she petitioned when she had no money and could get some money every time. The second type is that after reasonable appeals are met, the petitioner will raise new unreasonable appeals. The petition finds that public security organ fears petition very much, especially leapfrog petitions. To persuade the petitioner to stop petitioning, public security organ even will bribe them. For this reason, some petitioners try to raise higher requests after their reasonable requirements are met. If the public security organ refuses to meet them, they will further petition to threaten public security organ. As long as public security organ meets their unreasonable requirements, they will raise high requirements. The case of Liu Xiaoqing introduced at the beginning of the preface is a typical case. Although the public security organ has met Liu Xiaoqing’s all requirements, she was not satisfied but kept raising higher requirements. Now, Liu Xiaoqing is a professional

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petitioner, who not only makes irrational petition but also guides others to make irrational petition or make irrational petition on behalf of others. The third type is that when a rational petition is in progress, the petitioner petitions to several departments simultaneously, which seriously disturbs the order of petition. There are procedures and deadline to accept and handle a petition, and the petition cannot be solved on the spot. However, the petitioner thinks that government fears petition and petitioning to several departments will have greater influence to accelerate handling of a case. While having supper, policeman Xu Pinliang told me that Qin Xianglian created a disturbance again. It was a case that happened during the Spring Festival. Qin Xianglian divorced and she could get more than 30,000 Yuan according to the court decision of first instance. Since the decision was not executed effectively, she made trouble at the home of Hu, the directorgeneral of the executive tribunal, and both disputed with each other. Qin Xianglian declared that director-general deliberately broke the law and beat her and claimed for compensation of 200,000 Yuan. For this reason, she petitioned to the court, the municipal public security bureau, the municipal politics and law committee, the municipal people’s congress and the municipal committee of the CPPCC. Policeman Xu Pinliang and Lei Zhenfeng kept persuading Qin Xianglian to stop petitioning. Qin Xianglian wanted to take her 4-year-old daughter to live in the police station and Lei Zhenfeng didn’t allow, since “the police station is not a nursery”. I chatted with Qin Xianglian for a while and she said, her husband worked in a construction company and has kept a woman for nine years, who was ten years younger than him. Then they were divorced. According to the court decision, Qin Xianglian declared that she got less and her husband declared that she got too much. Both parties petitioned. The intermediate court affirmed the original judgment. After more than a year, the executive tribunal has not executed the decision. Qin Xianglian thought her husband got along well with directorgeneral Hu of the executive tribunal, so he made false evidence for his husband to prove that he had no executive capacity. However, her husband bought a car during the execution period. Besides, he worked, so it was impossible that he had no executive capacity. To supervise the court to execute the decision, she petitioned to several departments simultaneously. Ultimately, the secretary of the municipal politics and law committee executed the decision by more than 20,000 Yuan, with 10,000 Yuan unpaid. She identified her behaviors at director-general Hu’s home as a

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justifiable defense since Hu disputed with her first. She requested to detain Hu and Lei Zhenfeng told her that they had to wait for leader’s decision. After a period of time, Xu Pinliang gave some materials to Lei Zhenfeng and told him that the leader requested both parties to go home. Qin Xianglian said, “I am not afraid, I am an ordinary person with nothing to lose and fear”; “Now I feel uncomfortable from head to foot and I am taking medicines for rheumatism, hyperglycemia, big heart and schizophrenia. If I am ill, I will make trouble for you, Lei Zhenfeng”; “I don’t believe that nobody can deal with it. In the worst case, I will petition to all authorities!”

Although the police were annoyed by Qin Xianglian, objectively speaking, her original appeal to execute the court decision was reasonable. When she petitioned to several departments, indeed plenty of petition resources were wasted and it placed huge stress on the police. But for Qin Xianglian, her not so reasonable petition indeed worked, which enhanced her determination to petition to several departments. The fourth type is to enhance the influence of rational petition, the petitioner causes pressure from public opinions to the public security organ in an extreme way. In other words, carry out rational petition by an unreasonable aggressive behavior. In the tense stance of petition, we find that petitioners who dare to take a risk often can get greater benefits, but honest and conservative petitioners cannot draw public attention. Hence, petition tends to be diversified, collective and violent, such as group petition, petition through threatening with suicide, which can easily arouse public concern and have a negative impact on government. To quiet down such events, government often tries to meet petitioner’s requirements, and more vicious petitions are caused. Policeman Chen Liangbao told me a vicious petition case, which he participated in handling. On December 15, 2011, Zeng Hai drank wine and then was taken to Shi Xiaojun’s home. Zeng Hai and Shi Xiaojun were rivals in the general election of the village committee. In the first round, Shi Xiaojun failed to be elected and he torn the vote angrily, which invalidated the election. Of course, Shi Xiaojun could no longer be elected and he intended to recommend his wife and his friend Wang Wei. On the day when the accident happened, Shi Xiaojun and Wang Wei et al. were negotiating about countermeasures. First, they planned to win the vote of Party members first by paying 500 Yuan for one vote. They took Zeng Hai home to inebriate him so that he could not participate in the election. Shi Xiaojun et al. proposed a toast to Zeng Hai by turns. Then, Zeng Hai

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got drunk and was locked in the room by Shi Xiaojun. At night, he found Zeng Hai’s unmoved and asked Zeng Hai’s wife to his home. He also called 120 to send Zeng Hai to the hospital and the doctor told him that Zeng Hai has died. As requested by the bereaved, postmortem examination was conducted and result showed that Zeng Hai’s death was not caused by mechanical force and drug and may be caused by alcoholism or other diseases arising from alcohol, but relevance remained to be identified after relevant examination results came out. Leader of the 1st criminal police team Lin Wenzhang considered it a case of negligent homicide. However, the bereaved thought Zeng Hai was beaten or poisoned to death and requested public security organ to arrest the murderer. Whereas public security organ didn’t register timely, the bereaved intended to make trouble at the municipal public security bureau with a coffin. On the way, the municipal public security bureau was informed and dispatched more than 20 policemen to contain and appease them. The bereaved got angry and were reluctant to compromise and requested the public security bureau to arrest the murderer. Now that the police didn’t allow them to move ahead, they unfolded the banner on the way to obstruct the traffic. The police persuaded them for a long time and they agreed to return. Unexpectedly, they carried the coffin to the municipal public security bureau after the police left. Leader of the municipal public security bureau got very angry and demanded to punish them according to law. Then, the police took major troublemakers to the police station and handled the procedures for detention until after 1:00 am.

In the first place, the petitioner could make reasonable requests and the public security organ could register and solve the case as quickly as possible. To extend the influence, the bereaved adopted “petition through threatening with life”, which severely damaged the image of the public security organ. Chen Liangbao told me that petition was often conducted in a peaceful and concessional way, but the bereaved overdid, “it has been the first time that the petitioner made trouble at the municipal public security bureau with a coffin”. Although the police station registered the case the next day, obviously the municipal public security bureau was so irritated to adopt strong measures. The police uphold two attitudes toward detaining the petitioner who overdoes. On one hand, they clap and cheer. On the other hand, they worry that detention will be a cause of repeat petitions.

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In a word, the conversion of a rational petition to an irrational petition is fundamentally because of the “petition temptation” mechanism. Irrational appeal can be obtained through continuous petition, and irrational petition can arouse concern easier than rational petition to help satisfy the petitioner’s appeals.

“Unruly People” or the People? As a form of ideological propaganda, petition system is considered as an important mechanism to solve contradictions among the people and an important measure to practice the mass line. A romantic phenomenon commonly exists in academic studies that petition is a rebellious action initiated by rights defender, while we can find from the above analysis that the petition system shows the other side in the movement process. “The other side of the petition system” is not perfect and not all petitioners are wronged people but unreasonable “unruly people”. “Unruly people” is apt to arouse disgust, but I don’t overemphasize its derogatory sense but try to depict another group of people that must emerge in the current petition situation. Therefore, “unruly people” are more “rational selectors” during system operation than “reactionaries”. When the petition system runs properly, right safeguarding theory is expounded correctly. But under the incentive of “petition temptation”, considering “people” as a monolithic block and that who fill the petition system are all wronged, which is obviously inconsistent with the reality. In the real petition system, the appeal and form of irrational petition are changing the nature of the petition system quickly. An old policeman Mi Fu shared his opinions about the problems of petition and “unruly people” with me. When petitions were advocated a few years ago, he was assigned to the Ministry of Public Security to take charge of petitions against the police of A City. He felt that 1/3 of petition cases were reasonable, 1/3 were importunate and 1/3 were caused by unruly people, which showed alienation of petition. In his opinion, it rose after 2000 and became increasingly fierce. The police suffered a disastrous decline in their authority, even inferior to common people. “Two persons who fought thought themselves justified and the police were wrong, because both accused the police of not doing as they wished”; “The petitioner kept petitioning to seek private interests, which was actually immoral”.

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Mi Fu classified petitioners in an interesting way. He distinguished “importunate people” from “unruly people”. The former’s appeal is partly reasonable but their petition form is not so reasonable, while the latter just intends to gain extra advantages by unfair means from government and their petition appeal is not reasonable at all. Certainly, whether the proportion of “unruly people” is accurate is another matter, but he explained at least two fundamental problems. First, we should admit the existence of “unruly people”. Actually it is a common sense, but many people ignore it consciously or unconsciously. Then, there are a lot of “unruly people” and the number is increasing. Except for petitions, “unruly people” may behave in different ways and they often compel the government to meet their unreasonable requirements by improper means. One day, I followed team leader Shen Qiang to handle a case in XX prison. The prison has had contradictions with the surrounding villagers due to sewage discharge. Villagers thought sewage polluted farmland and disagreed with discharge, while the prison stood that it was a natural river and they could discharge sewage since the detention house nearby could do so. To ease the contradictions, the prison invested in building a highway, but villagers were still dissatisfied. The prison plans to build a sewage treatment plant behind to treat sewage before discharge. However, villagers disagree and request the prison to compensate for them. If the prison disagrees, villagers will destroy the construction site and declare that they will do so every day. Team leader Shen Qiang signed with emotion, “Nowadays, common people are so bold to bully a prison!” But the prison is helpless, since they are unwilling to offend villagers so as not to stir up trouble.

The old policeman Mi Fu described how “unruly people” emerged using very classic words, “Unruly people are cultivated by government!” Governments at different levels are unwilling to offend the petitioner and fear that the petitioner will complain to higher authorities so that they will get involved in petition disputes. Because of superior unit’s weakness, the grassroots unit has to make concessions and meet the petitioner’s various appeals as far as possible, while irrational petitioners may raise higher requests for more interests once they are bribed. Mi Fu talked about the government’s value of right and wrong to me and he considered it an essential issue of government. If the government ignores right or wrong, just pursues self-protection and fears trouble, not

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only can the problems not be solved but also a group of unruly people will be cultivated. Mi Fu gave me an example. Butcher A had an affair with butcher B’s wife and was killed by B, and B escaped. Since then, A’s wife C has kept petitioning and requested public security organ to solve the case. In fact, the police investigated the case diligently, but C thought the police did nothing and requested them to arrest B everywhere. To persuade C to stop petitioning, public security organ gave her a lot of benefits, helping her with her child’s urban household registration and affording her grandson to go to school. However, it made no sense. The public security organ dispatched a car and two policemen to follow her and chase B as she requested. Finally, B surrendered himself to justice, but C disagreed and stood that B didn’t surrender himself to justice and he should be sentenced to death, so she continued to petition. Mi Fu said, “In order to prevent problems in the tenure and that nobody brings a lawsuit against them, the leader will confuse right and wrong and consequently a great many unruly people will be cultivated.”

Numerous “unruly people” cause three severe consequences. First, they disturb the order of the petition so that the petition system becomes a means to seek private profits. Second, “unruly people” have a demonstration effect. Whereas they better know how to deal with government and understand various strategies of “stepping on the line but not crossing the line” while seeking private profits, they can arouse and “deal with” government’s attention faster, so they set up a good example for a lot of petitioners. The last consequence the most serious, namely “unruly people” often disguise as “a right defender” and seek illegitimate benefits through “safeguarding rights”. However, their performance may arouse sympathy of media and liberalist and consequently “unruly people” can hardly reveal their identity and gain a great reputation (Yang 2011). Researchers pointed out that state’s worry about stability, support for right-protection discourse and loss of working principle and bottom line of safeguarding stability through petition expedite a spreading and huge profit-driven petition group. Rural petition governance is challenging not only in an increase in petition quantity but also in highlights of profit-driven petition especially “petition nail household”, which certainly includes specialized petitioners. It is just because of profit-driven petition and “petition nail household” that cause the difficulty in the current petition governance (Tian 2010).

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When researchers are immersed in romantic imagination of safeguarding rights through petition, “unruly people” are secretly laughing in the cloak of “right defenders”.

“Self-Denial” of Petition System It should be pointed out that although the petition system is sharply criticized above, it does not mean that I agree with the “petition cancellation theory”. In contrast, I have always considered petition system as one of the most precious political systems of China. Petition system is sharply criticized to show its failure during operation to indicate the possibility to “rediscover petition”. The most well-known ideal objective of the petition system is to offer the last right relief to the wronged, but in practice, petition system gradually becomes a means for irrational petitioner to seek personal interests. From the perspective of the constitution, petition is a right of freedom of people, from the perspective of legal order, petition system should be an supplementary administrative relief system (Zhu and Zhu 2006) and “baseline relief system” (Ying 2004). In fact, petition has become the best “relief system” for most people and other routine judicial relief methods have been increasingly marginalized. From a political perspective, petition has borne people’s expectations to state power for thousands of years and it is a traditional right relief method and an original path to justice for Chinese (He 2006). As an ideal of universal value, petition is deemed as a kind of basic human rights (Li 2009). In general, an ideal petition system should be a kind of basic substantive rights and procedural rights and should be able to reproduce justice. It is a pity that real petitions are confusing and greedy. Under the incentive of “petition temptation”, irrational petition emerges endlessly, rational petition tends to be irrational and “unruly people” seek illegitimate interests under the guise of safeguarding rights. “Right” and “justice” become abusive undeserved reputation and increasingly far from an ideal petition system. For superior unit and the central government, an ideal petition system is of great political significance for power monitoring. Such power monitoring is not direct control among administrative systems but “outflanking” subordinate units using public information feedback and through political union between superior unit and the masses. Direct superiorsubordinate monitoring often tends to be invalid due to self-interest tendency of subordinate unit and the most direct monitoring of grassroots

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unit can be realized through mobilizing the masses.1 In this sense, petition system has been a magic weapon for the central government to break local bureaucratism since ancient times.2 Through operation of the petition system, superior unit, subordinate unit and the masses can achieve “one union and two opposites”. So-called “one union” refers to the union between superior unit and the masses and they unify to restrict deviant behaviors of the subordinate unit. So-called “two opposites” refer to the opposite between superior unit and subordinate unit and that between the masses and subordinate unit. It is not a “conflicting” relationship but a mutually restricted relationship. In a real petition system, “one union and two opposites” are completely overturned. Superior unit and the masses are not unified but opposite. The former does not welcome the latter’s visit and the latter no longer trusts the former firmly. Although superior units and subordinate units seem opposite to each other superficially, they make up a firm union in their heart and unify for the purpose of “petition elimination”. Although subordinate unit and the masses seem opposite to each other superficially, they have common interests fundamentally, namely the masses try to seek interest through petition and the subordinate unit can protect themselves only through meeting the appeals. With such a subtle tacit understanding, both escape out of the monitoring system of the superior unit. In general, the current petition system presents such a situation that the subordinate unit partly forms an alliance of interest with the superior unit and the petitioner repeatedly and successfully defects the alliance between the superior unit and the petitioner. Then, the dream to monitor power through petition system is completely disillusioned. Finally, an ideal petition system is considered to provide effective decision information to the superior unit and the central government. Petition

1 People’s supervision is all-round and organic. The essence of petition supervision is people’s supervision, the all-participated “supervision”, a sanitizer against corruption, a power weapon to ensure diligence and honesty and an important means to realize democracy. For example, in early years of the new nation, more than 70% of cases accepted by the Supervision Committee of the Government Administration Council were from people’s petition (Diao 1996). 2 Mao Zedong made an extremely important and familiar approval that “we must value public communication” on May 16. “We must value public communication, adopt appropriate measures for public complaints and meet their just requirements. We should take it as a way of the Communist Party and the people’s government to strengthen ties with people and should not treat it lightly, ignore it or uphold a bureaucratic attitude.”

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delivers plenty of information to the state every year, which supplements and “corrects” official information and some of which official information lacks, especially information easy to be ignored has supplementary function. People’s letters and visits are delivered-to-door mass work and information that cannot be “bought” with money. Information feedback function of the petition system must work on two bases. First, information provided by the petitioner is real and effective. Second, the superior unit and the central government are able to distinguish right from wrong. The two conditions supplement each other and none can be omitted. The actual petition system does not have the two conditions for information feedback function. First, under the incentive of “petition temptation”, the rise of irrational petition and the irrationalization of rational petition make information entering the petition channel unreliable. To seek illegitimate benefits, the petitioner tends to exaggerate and even make up the fact to bring various information noises to the superior unit and the central government. Then, units at different levels are afraid of offending the petitioner and actively carry out various “petition elimination” activities, they are unable to identify the authenticity of feedback information and even deny the necessity for identification as long as petition is not disclosed. Thus, when the superior unit is unable to identify the authenticity of feedback information, information obtained from petition is seriously distorted. Consequently, information feedback function of the petition system cannot play a positive role but misleads decision-making. To sum up, the current petition system has been seriously alienated. It cannot effectively resolve various social issues but produces many new issues. Due to the incentive of “petition temptation”, petition system is not abandoned for diminishing the ability to solve problems but attracts more petitioners especially irrational petitioner. However, petition-involved expansion produces more social issues and petition system is caught in a dilemma of “involution” (Zhang and Zhang 2009) and walking to a dead end of “self-denial”.

References Diao Jiecheng. 1996. Petition History, 10. Beijing: Beijing Economics College Press. He Hairen. 2006. Function Transformation and Destiny of Petition Relief. Journal of Law Application (6).

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Li Qiuxue. 2009. Discussion About Chinese Petition History, 378. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press. Tian Xianhong. 2010. From Right Safeguarding to Profit-Driven—A Framework of Interpretation of Logical Change of Peasant’s Petition. Open Times (6). Yang Hua. 2011. Root of Governance of Rural Petition After Reform of Taxation Expenses-Analysis Based on Main Type of Peasant’s Petition. Law Edition Journal of Yunnan University (4). Ying Xing. 2004. Petition Relief as Special Administrative Relief. Chinese Journal of Law (3). Zhang Yonghe and Zhang Wei. 2009. Petition of Lintong District: Research Report on China’s Grassroots Petition Problems, 296. Beijing: People’s Publishing House. Zhu Zuixin and Zhu Kongwu. 2006. Myth of Right: Petition System in Legal Order. Studies in Law and Business (2).

CHAPTER 8

Excessive Discipline and the Second Form of Police’s Misconduct

Coerced by “no-fault punishment” and “petition temptation effect”, grassroots police fall into “nonfeasance for fear of complaint”. Nevertheless, the rational choice of nonfeasance does not completely liberate the police from complaint and petition but gives a new cause of complaint and petition. These new complaints and petitions trigger a new round of policing supervision and “nonfeasance for fear of complaint” is severely attacked. As a result, grassroots police fall into “the second form of misconduct”.

Fight “Nonfeasance for Fear of Complaint” After losing the principles of judging and practicing right or wrong, policing supervision inclines to impute the responsibility for all complaints and petitions to grassroots police. Zero tolerance policy not only is intolerant to the police’s law enforcement faults, but also evolves to be intolerant to contradiction. That is, the emergence of social contradictions and conflicts is taken as a manifestation of ineffective social control of the police, especially in petition event, it is a kind of “malpractice” that the police “get out of control” and do not adopt effective measures to stabilize the petitioner, though many petition events are unreasonable. In a word, whether complaints and petitions, if any, are reasonable, the police should undertake the responsibility. Under such © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 133 Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Huihuang, Petition Against the Police, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0_8

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pressure, grassroots police prefer nonfeasance to positive act, which is so-called “nonfeasance for fear of complaint”. The police’s nonfeasance has two direct consequences. It provides irrational petitioner with a cause of complaint and petition about the police’s malpractice and affects handling of other cases to cause new complaints and petitions. When new complaints and petitions are reflected to the superior unit, a new round of policing supervision starts and “nonfeasance for fear of complaint” is identified as “distortion of law enforcement idea” of the police and cracked down. At 21: 40 on November 2, 2011, Wang X and her husband Liu XX, residents in XX County, returned to their residence at Wenhua Road and found that the door was opened and the house was messed up, with 3 gold rings, 1 gold necklace stolen, which valued more than 10,000 Yuan. At 22:05, Liu XX reported to the 110 command center of the public security bureau of XX County. At 22:08, the 110 command center of the public security bureau of XX County called the duty room of Guoyuan Police Station to dispatch the police. After receiving the instruction, the police Xu Xiaojun, who is on duty, neither reported to the leader on duty nor notified technical staff of criminal police to investigate the site but contacted Liu XX, and notified him of protecting the site and contact technical staff to investigate the site at 8:00 the next day.

In order not to accept and handle cases and avoid “trouble”, grassroots police often uphold a negative attitude in the hope that the parties involved could “shrink back from difficulties” or they could “shift cases to the police on the next shift”. Liu XX’s wife Wang X felt very dissatisfied with the police station’s nonfeasance and called 110 again at 22:36. After receiving instructions from the 110 command center for the second time at 22:38, Xu Xiaojun reported to the leader on duty Chen Shizhen. At 22: 40, the victim directly called the director-general of the municipal public security bureau and complained that the policeman received the case but refused to handle it. At about 22:50, the leader on duty Chen Shizhen led the police on duty Xu Qingfeng and Xu Xiaojun to the scene. At 23: 00, technical staff of the criminal police team carried out field investigation and paid a visit.

The police’s nonfeasance didn’t get rid of the responsibility but triggered complaints and petitions. The victim directly reported to the

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director-general of the municipal public security bureau, who is famous for being intolerant of the police’s faults, so the case became very serious instantly. In leader’s opinion, the police’s nonfeasance is as hateful as misconduct, since both are dereliction of duty and will trigger complaints and petitions of the masses. Thus, whatever difficulties the police have, they should crack down behaviors that cause complaints and petitions. On November 14, 2011, Online Information Digest Issue 168 of the municipal public security bureau reprinted an illegal act reflected by netizens that 90% of restaurants and supermarkets at the railway station cheated tourists from other places. They tore off a corner of changes to guests, requested them to pay with a banknote of 100 Yuan or 50 Yuan and stealthily substituted the money, which damaged the image of the city. Principal leader and leader in charge of the municipal public security bureau highly valued it and gave instructions to lawfully dealt with and crack down them on the very day. However, Baishu Police Station was seriously irresponsible while executing the instructions. It was explicitly stipulated that, “After receipt of assignment order, relevant units should carry out investigation timely, handle cases and submit the investigation report in strict accordance with leader’s instructions. Generally, a case should be closed in 10 days. Otherwise, the police should handle the procedures for extension before the expiry date.” Baishu Police Station requisitioned the approval document on November 14, 2011, but it closed the case until December 26, 2011 without handling the procedures for extension. It was seriously beyond the time limit and failed to thoroughly study the approval document. During that period, principal leader of Baishu Police Station arranged for the execution of the approval document without supervision, paid little attention and did poorly in organization.

An important reason why the leader is unwilling to deeply get involved in a case is to avoid looking for trouble and assuming the responsibility. The police are negative in handling cases and leader is also negative in supervising and inspecting the police to handle cases. Instead, they concern about how to avoid complaints of the parties involved. Once the police are complained, leader will criticize and punish them. According to the closing report, Baishu Police Substation adopted two investigation measures. First, it comprehensively combed cases of railway

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stations and restaurants and supermarkets nearby in recent years to investigate such cases. Second, it organized to investigate the staff of railway stations and restaurants, supermarkets and stalls nearby to identify such cases. However, the investigator “comprehensively combed” cases, without searching the most basic investigation information of the 110 command center of the municipal public security bureau. Netizens reported that railway stations and restaurants and supermarkets nearby cheated tourists from other places, but the investigator visited them simply and paltered with the leader’s requirements. Baishu Police Station concluded through investigation that, in recent years, only 3 cases similar to illegal acts reported by netizens happened in recent years. However, the criminal investigation team of the municipal public security bureau verified and found that a total of 124 cases similar to illegal acts reported by netizens happened in the jurisdiction of Baishu Police Station during November 2009 to April 2011. There was a great difference. Baishu Police Station’s research conclusion was very inconsistent with the fact.

The police are reluctant to investigate wholeheartedly for two reasons. First, they are afraid of cracking more cases and assuming more responsibilities. Second, they are afraid of causing numerous complaints and petitions through investigation and that any complaint and petition may have a serious impact on the police under the pressure of “no-fault punishment”. Thus, nonfeasance may be an ideal choice with short-term benefit. In consideration of short-term benefit, “nonfeasance for fear of complaint” may prevent some cases and complaints, but the police will bear huge risks. In the long run, any nonfeasance may be held accountable. As the first choice, positive act or negative act is “a gamble” for the police, but both may cause different damages: The police may receive “no-fault punishment” even though they carry out the work diligently and such damage is far more than the punishment for nonfeasance. In this aspect, nonfeasance may be “a more ideal” choice. When the supervision department makes greater efforts to strike “nonfeasance for fear of complaint” and the “room for benefits” from nonfeasance shrinks quickly, and the police have to make a new response.

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“The Second Form of Misconduct” Grassroots police quickly find that the possibility of complaint and petition arising from nonfeasance and positive act is getting closer, so the first choice is insignificant. Thus, the police must make the second choice, but they cannot act too positively or negatively. A compromise proposal is to handle relevant cases in a disguised form through “reconciling differences regardless of principles” and practicing fraud. We can call such behaviors as “the second form of misconduct”. Different from “the first form of misconduct”, which is produced when power discipline is absent, while “the second form of misconduct” is produced under excessive power discipline and the police misconduct in order to avoid complaint and petition. A traditional way is to suppress behavior or sign of a compliant and petition violently so that such complaint and petition will not be conveyed to the superior unit. However, the violent means often results in the most serious punishment under the pressure of human rights discourse, so it gradually loses the market. Relatively mild “blurring of the line between right and wrong” and practicing fraud are an alternative method. Due to excessive fear of “no-fault punishment”, grassroots police practice fraud, which becomes a subconscious choice even if unnecessary. At 10:56 on June 5, 2011, a bus and a car crashed 50m in the west of the intersection of X Road and XX Road in the patrol zone of No.2 patrol car of Linxiang Police Station. Whereas patrol cars 1, 2 and 3 were handing a case, the command center of the municipal public security bureau ordered patrol car 4 to deal with the accident. However, the policemen on duty Chen Zheng et al. were very reluctant to answer after the command center called for consecutive three times and they upheld a negative attitude. At 11:00, the command center requested patrol car 4 to rush to the municipal public security bureau immediately after dealing with the accident. At 11:10, patrol car 4 disregarded the instruction and didn’t rush to the municipal public security bureau after dealing with the accident. During that period, the command center urged several times and they arrived at the municipal public security bureau until 11:40. On that day, the leader on duty of Linxiang Police Station didn’t turn on the interphone. At 10:50, the municipal public security bureau called the leader on duty, no one answered.

The police were reluctant to neither accept cases beyond the patrol zone nor answer even though the command center called for consecutive

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three times. Undoubtedly, they upheld a negative attitude. The supervision department can accurately identify whenever and wherever grassroots police did or didn’t do anything through the intercom system. Panoptic supervision mode enabled superiors to clearly know the police’s passive mentality and give them punishments. Whereas policeman on duty of patrol car 4 Fan Yu was on leave, only Chen Zheng and Shi Lun were on duty in the forenoon on June 5, 2011. To cope with the inspection, Chen Zheng disregarded the command center’s instruction to rush into the municipal public security bureau, drove to the intersection of X Road and XX Road and asked Song Dongping, a policeman of patrol car 1, to stall the supervisor off. Then, Chen Zheng et al. drove to the municipal public security bureau after fetching the certificates from Chen Zheng’s house at XX Road and urged by the command center several time.

The police practiced fraud because they received an instruction that “there must be three policemen on each patrol car” and they were afraid of being punished for inadequate personnel. Although Fan Yu was on leave and “they just had to make an explanation to the supervisor”, they could not predict the criteria for punishment. In their mind, they often assume no-fault liability, so they try to practice fraud to reduce the cause of being investigated. It is a normal phenomenon that grassroots police try to meet the petitioner’s various requirements through reconciling differences regardless of principles and unprincipled compromise in order to avoid complaint and petition. Such form of misconduct is not caused by inadequate power discipline but a negative effect of excessive power discipline. When irrational complaint and petition is inevitable and complaint and petition cannot be cracked down but become a new excuse to punish the police, it is “an ideal choice” to stabilize the petitioner by all means and prevent from revealing complaint and petition, which forms a new type of misconduct. When Shanshu Police Station investigated “2011.9.8” homicide case, resident Guo Dazhong within the jurisdiction was investigated by the special investigating team because he had received security punishment. Policemen of the special investigating team looked for Guo Dazhong twice, but in vain. After that, the police understood that Guo Dazhong was a regular petitioner with psychosis and the special investigating team suspended the

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investigation with the permission of the leader. At 9:00 on September 26, 2011, Guo Dazhong and his wife Yu Xiu questioned the police why they were looking for him. The police told that they wanted to understand the situation to crack “2011.9.8” case. Guo Dazhong was so excited and incoherent that his psychosis relapsed. Yu Xiu cried and screamed for Shanshu Police Station made his husband’s psychosis relapse and persisted in leaving Guo Dazhong in the police station alone. Acting political commissar of Shanshu Police Station Shen Wenbin assigned a person to closely stabilize and control them. During that period, Guo Dazhong and Yu Xiu not only made trouble out of nothing but also wanted to commit suicide by jumping from the second floor several times. The police stopped them timely.

In the past, such unreasonable behaviors could hardly succeed and would be punished according to law. If the state and the government can be coerced by anyone, no social governance activity can be carried out effectively. To a large extent, irrational petitions are increasingly rampant because of alienation of the zero tolerance policy in policing supervision. Grassroots police are afraid of petitions and the petitioner uses their mentality to raise various irrational requirements. To prevent petition, grassroots police often compromise at the sacrifice of principle. After staying in Shanshu Police Station for nearly ten hours, Yu Xiu agreed to cooperate with the police in sending Guo Dazhong to a psychiatric hospital on the condition that Shanshu Police Station borne all treatment expenses thus incurred by a letter of commitment signed by responsible person. Otherwise, she would leave Guo Dazhong in the police station alone. At that time, the acting director of the police substation was hunting down an escaped prisoner and the acting political commissar Shen Wenbin was in charge, who decided to issue the letter of commitment on bearing all treatment expenses without the permission of leader in charge of the municipal public security bureau and principal leader of the police station. Presently, Guo Dazhong is still receiving treatment at a psychiatric hospital of A City and Shanshu Police Substation has paid treatment expenses of 13,000 Yuan.

Considering that if Yu Xiu and her husband petitioned to the municipal public security bureau, it would have a bad impact on Shanshu Police Station, the police station chose to compromise at the sacrifice of principle and tried to meet their irrational requirements to eliminate petition. Although Yu Xiu and her husband made trouble out of nothing, the

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police substation should not compromise as stipulated. However, if they didn’t compromise, they just had three choices. 1. They could act positively to solve the problems, but it was useless since many problems exceeded the responsibility scope of the police station. 2. They could ignore their appeals and uphold a negative attitude, which may trigger complaint and petition. 3. They could punish them according to law for their irrational appeals, then Yu Xiu and her husband must complain and petition. Complaint and petition arising from the last two methods are irrational and the police will be blamed for “losing control over the petitioners”. Thus, from the aspect of short-term benefit, unprincipled compromise may be the most rational choice for grassroots police and at least it can postpone “no-fault punishment”.

“Unprincipledness” Against “Unprincipledness” It must be pointed out that “the first form of misconduct” does not change into “nonfeasance for fear of complaint” and “the second form of misconduct” in strict accordance with time, but as an evolutionary sequence of behavior logic. It means that the three forms of misconduct may exist simultaneously in reality and “the second form of misconduct” does not exclude “the first form of misconduct” and “nonfeasance for fear of complaint”. The three forms do not change according to the linear rule and different types of measures may be adopted by the same policeman in the same case. Therefore, the meaning of “the second form of misconduct” is not to set a definite boundary of policing supervision but to reveal that this form must be originated from current policing supervision mode. In this sense, three forms of “misconduct” may emerge simultaneously, but “the second form of misconduct” will show the evolutionary logic and internal predicament of “unprincipled” zero tolerance supervision more extremely. It is strange that “unprincipled” policing supervision mode does not allow grassroots police to adopt “unprincipled” countermeasures. Once such behaviors as unprincipled compromise, reconciling differences regardless of principles and practicing fraud contained in “the second form of misconduct” to avoid complaint and petition are revealed, they will be cracked down by policing supervision mode that causes such problems. It is so-called “unprincipledness” against “unprincipledness”. Even though grassroots police adopt “the second form of misconduct”, they cannot avoid complaint and petition eventually. Just as the

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police say, “scorpion is a biter”. Once police station is unable to meet the petitioner’s irrational appeals, belated complaint and petition will occur ultimately. In the case of a petition, grassroots police station’s unprincipled misconduct will be exposed. The supervision department clearly objects to it, considers it a manifestation of grassroots police station’s “weak discipline awareness” and “weak ability to solve complex problems” and circulates a notice of criticism in the city. According to my research, “the second form of misconduct” is common among police stations and superior unit including the supervision department is unlikely to know nothing about it. At the end of September 2010, Gong Zhi, a middle school student from XX County, was beaten while surfing the internet at the internet bar belonged to Tong Jiaying. Gong Zhi’s father Gong Xiangrui, after knowing it, called X police station, reporting that his son surfed the internet in a “black internet bar” where he was beaten and requesting to investigate and treat the “black internet bar”. Before notifying the industry and commerce department, Zhang Jingfan, who was the deputy director on duty, directly led policeman Liu Guotao to investigate and treat the internet bar, with 17 computers detained. Xiao Yin, the wife of the owner of the internet bar Tong Jiaying, was orally called to X police station for investigation. After that, X police station neither handed over the internet bar to the industry and commerce department for investigation and treatment as stipulated, nor registered and investigated the case, but requested Tong Jiaying and Gong Zhi to reconcile and claimed for medical expenses of 4000 Yuan from Tong Jiaying for Gong Zhi. On October 14, Tong Jiaying gave 4000 Yuan to Zhang Jingfan at Nanjie Police Station, but Zhang didn’t handle any procedures. At night, Zhang Jingfan returned the detained computers to Tong Jiaying arbitrarily without evidence. The next day, Zhang Jingfan handed over 4000 Yuan to Gong Xiangrui at X police station without handling the procedures. Gong Xiangrui didn’t handle any procedures and Zhang Jingfan didn’t issue a reconciliation agreement.

In the above case, the police station’s misconduct was obviously aimed at handling the case, which should be handled according to law, through private negotiation. According to experience, solving public security cases not according to law at least has the following “advantages”. First, it is not necessary to assume the burden of proof, and problems can be solved immediately and efficiently as both parties wish. Second, it can simplify the case to the greatest extent, and it is not necessary to hold the batterer

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accountable and can avoid a lot of trouble for the police station. Third, “the black internet bar” can be forced to compensate to the victim for fear of being investigated and treated. If the case had been handed over to the industry and commerce department, the police station would have no “bargain power”. Fourth, for the police station, as long as the victim gets reasonable compensation no matter where it is from, the victim will not entangle with the police. Fifth, it can reduce the quantity of public security cases of the police substation. The last and most important, it can avoid complaints and petitions when it is difficult to investigate and solve the case timely. However, the victim regretted after two months and requested for compensation again. After his requirement was not met, the victim complained to the municipal public security bureau and consequently the supervision department got involved. The police station was severely punished for unprincipled misconduct. In fact, if the superior unit can stick to principles, distinguish right from wrong in complaints and petitions and deal with them rightly, and the police need not to assume the risk of “no-fault punishment”, grassroots police may completely do official business according to official principles without unprincipled compromise. Of course, it does not mean that grassroots police will not make other types of mistakes but it can guide more policemen to handle cases actively according to principles. Then, an interesting problem arises. Now that the grassroots unit’s unprincipledness is largely caused by the superior unit’s unprincipledness, why is the superior unit intolerant of the grassroots unit’s unprincipledness? In other words, faults made by the superior unit are shifted to the grassroots unit. There may be the following reasons. First, unprincipled misconduct must be defined and it is a kind of political correctness, even though the decider is also unprincipled in practical action and serious “separation of name from fact” occurs in the practical process of policing supervision. Then, if we are not confused by superficial statement but study the nature of the problem, we can find that punishments for “the second form of misconduct” of the subordinate unit do not focus on “misconduct” but the grassroots unit’s out of control over the parties involved. Punishment is the result of the grassroots unit’s revealing the petition instead of their law enforcement means, from which we can understand why “the second form of misconduct” can be spread among grassroots police stations. Finally, we can regard such a type of responsibility transfer behaviors as a part of “superior legality

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protection movement” that prevailed in recent years, including zero tolerance policing supervision, law enforcement standardization and power discipline of grassroots units. All are aimed at attributing public disappointment about government to grassroots unit’s fault to build a legal image of the superior unit and the central government.

Self-Opposition and Nihilism When the superior unit objects the subordinate unit’s “unprincipledness” by “unprincipledness”, grassroots police are caught in a “no way out” dilemma. In the zero tolerance policing supervision system, grassroots police are likely to face the consequence of “no-fault punishment”, whether they have “principled” behavior or “unprincipled” behavior. In this sense, policing supervision falls into the paradox of self-opposition. For one thing, policing supervision is a system for standardizing police behavior, but now it is a system for activating nonstandard police behavior, such as “nonfeasance for fear of complaint” and “the second form of misconduct”, and so on. For another, policing supervision is intended to intensify public acceptance of government, but now it causes the loss of government authority since it cultivates a group of troublemakers. Self-opposition policing supervision system has two major consequences, the police’s social control ability is null and the police’s self-identity is null. Reasonable policing supervision should form a relative balance between social control and power discipline. In an international seminar titled “internal and external supervision over the police”, representatives of 12 countries such as UK, US, France, Italy, Belgium and Spain introduced their situations and attitudes toward policing supervision and preventatives of many participating countries, especially stressed that such supervision must keep a balance between exercising the power legally and protecting civil rights, while identifying the necessity of policing supervision. But in the western social environment full of violent crimes, the police have suffered great pressure and it is increasingly difficult to keep such balance (Zhang 1997). Just as zero tolerance policy on policing supervision is being practiced in China, a few troublemakers severely affect the implementation of policing supervision activities, and the police’s social control ability is heavily weakened. The policing supervision network built using interphones and other modern communication technologies almost can be regarded as a

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“panoptic” platform. Every policeman is monitored anytime with specific monitoring conditions unknown to form an institutionalized power supervision system. The supervisor can be on the top of the power pyramid or anyone. For example, the supervision team comprising ordinary policemen can supervise the police effectively and even any ordinary person can get involved in the supervision system such as complaint and petition. Thus, facing every potential supervisor, the police have to carry out law enforcement activities cautiously. In the collective era, social concern “concentrates on” enemies of the masses through class discourse and enemies turn over a new leaf through such “concentration”. From this point of view, the state in the collective era is considered to integrate into the masses and its social control is the control of “state” over “outside of the state”. Presently, with the prevalence of liberalism thought, the state is seen as a potential violator of public interests and people should keep an appropriate distance from the state and supervise it. It is just to cater to such ideology that the state strives to motivate the entire society to monitor it, especially grassroots units. To ensure smooth supervision, the state cancels the costs of various complaints and petitions and even the systems for distinguishing from right or wrong. As a result, grassroots police must bear the consequence of “no-fault punishment” in the case of complaint and petition. For self-protection, grassroots police have to adopt unprincipled compromise and prevent complaints and petitions through “the second form of misconduct” in the short term. Then, law enforcement activities are almost carried out to avoid complaints and petitions, but such “fear of appeal” mentality is quickly used by troublemakers, policing supervision activities coerced by “a few people” have lost the social control ability eventually. “Neither principled nor unprincipled”, zero tolerance policing supervision mode makes grassroots police helpless and they gradually lose self-identification and become barren spiritually. First, grassroots police’s working enthusiasm weakens greatly. As a result, they come to work late and leave early, for which the supervision department carries out supervision more than once. Policeman Ji Xiang even said, “Most policemen will quit but for retirement benefit”. Then, the police perform their duties in a perfunctory manner and are demoralized and at a poor mental state while enforcing the law, without masculinity that the police should have.

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Third, grassroots police can neither have a sense of belonging nor feel “justice” that the police should have. Traffic and patrol policemen Long Xiang said, “The police sector needs a struggling spirit, but now I cannot feel it”. Whether an occupation or a career, the police sector has its particular characteristics, since the police contact the dark side of the society more and bear more risks. Without a safe sense of belonging and cohesion, the police sector may collapse. Lastly, grassroots police are likely to have psychological abnormality under the alienated monitoring system. Huang, a policeman who I contacted frequently, suffered heavy mental stress and he had to relieve his stress through some “abnormal” actions. In front of women, he played dirty jokes and spontaneously said vulgar words with very indecent actions. Some policemen told me that they felt rather unhappy and Huang could divert himself from boredom in such an “abnormal” way and relieve his stress. Under the zero tolerance policing supervision mode, the police were seriously distorted physically and mentally. The monitoring power tries to deeply imprint on the police’s body and continuously exhibits “a feast of power” by gestures and expressions. However, the monitoring of the police’s body that I observe is unsuccessful not for inadequate force but for excessive force and it makes the distorted body to resist power by another posture. The most obvious resistance is to evade the superior unit’s instructions negatively and through “just performing the duties”. The depressed body will not actively carry out the work except for just meeting the power needs, such as punctual clock-in and clock-out. Huang behaved in a different way. He sold the disciplined pure body using vulgar and profane words to make a resistance against the supervision power. Then, we not only find the decoration of power on the police’s body, but also can observe the surge of counter power. The stronger power is decorated the stronger counter power will resist to greatly clear up the body battlefield of power. Ultimately, so-called power and counter power become null and completely deviate from the set ideal objective.

Reference Zhang Shengzu. 1997. Guidelines for Application of Regulations on Supervision of Public Security Organs, 90. Beijing: Publishing House of People’s Public Security University of China.

CHAPTER 9

Petition Governance and Its Dialectics

Petition and Rule of Law In recent years, the petition system was increasingly reflected and criticized, especially there were more and more dissenting voices against the petition system in front of various evil consequences of petition alienation, among which the jurisprudential circle condemned the petition system most seriously. Under the discourse of legal modernization, petition has been defined as the scope of the rule of man. “The petition system is originally a product of society of the rule of man, which is formed under the guidance of the rule of man in a unit society and is bad for resolution of disputes and protection of human rights”; “in fact, we can just see more serious consequences of intensifying petition in the dispute resolution mechanism of rule of man and it is absolutely bad for resolution of disputes. It is not better than covering disputes, which is catastrophic to the society in the long run” (Zhou 2006). Overemphasizing the petition system in the modern society is considered to be a denial of judicial authority. Judicial determination and finality can avoid wasting energy on several proposals about one matter and vexatious suit. In China, however, “the existence of the petition system involving law and lawsuit actually denies the aforesaid design scheme. When a petition is permitted and various supervision adjustment measures are adopted, even the Supreme Judicial Court cannot give the final word by legal opinions” (Ji 2009). Consequently, “the public no © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 147 Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Huihuang, Petition Against the Police, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0_9

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longer considers judicial adjudication as an effective means to solve the finality of disputes but always enjoy seeking petition relief by administrative means. Judicial adjudication authority is continuously weakened and lost in this process” (Chen et al. 2011). In this case, some criticisms appear more persuasive in the context of petition alienation. Governments at all levels tend to adopt other measures than legal measures to lower the “petition rate” and even pursue “zero petition” for self-protection, further strengthening “non-rule-of-law oriented” petitions and seriously weakening the authority of state and law (Jiang et al. 2008). Based on the above judgments, people think although the petition system has certain right relief function when the current Chinese law is imperfect, it is essentially a kind of “self-defeating right and system arrangements, namely a kind of special rights and systems that contain formal judicial proceedings, which guide people to pursue circuitously, to realize right relief” (Lin 2001). For this reason, we should weaken and even cancel the petition system to promote the development of rule of law. For example, researchers suggest common people to give opinions and suggestions and take the petition as a way of public political participation, but public right relief function must be separated from the petition system to identify the authority of judicial remedy (Yu 2005). According to another mainstream viewpoint, the petition governance should be included in the channel of the rule of law, though it is not canceled. It should be pointed out that the legalization of petition governance is not as simple as it looks and it implies a significant issue on legal politics, namely how to realize the legalization of politics. Different from lawsuit, petition, as a right relief means, is essentially a political behavior, so the parties involved still can petition even if the court has made a final judgment, which can be found everywhere in reality. Then, does legalization of petition governance mean that the petition is taken as the third judgment of the court to cancel its political nature? Obviously it is inappropriate. Petition is vigorous because it is a kind of political participation behavior that largely enables the parties involved to question a legal judgment. Though petition is canceled in form and taken as the third judgment of the court, substantial petition still will emerge endlessly. Fundamentally, the petition system can exist chronically because the society needs it, but not only for personal willingness. “The realization of Chinese society and system cannot be measured and judged completely using western logic. In system design, we should give consideration

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to both China’s national situation and cultural tradition and avoid the greatest evil instead of pursuing a perfect and pure realm” (Zuo and He 2005). More exactly, “the legalization of petition governance” stresses the systematicness and termination of petition behaviors, and right safeguarding petition cannot be out of procedures and endless, otherwise, the approach of safeguarding rights may be blocked by some profit seekers. Seeing serious defects of China’s rule of law, some researchers uphold “the lesser evil” attitude and “give a way out” to the petition system. Although the petition is a kind of “self-defeating right and system arrangements”, “In China’s current system transition phase, judicial corruption and judicial injustice are a more serious chronic and stubborn disease that people feel dissatisfied with and it cannot be solved immediately. Many petition problems have arisen from judicial injustice. It is not unnecessary to give people a way of petition but a stimulus for judicial supervision and improvement” (Li 2009). Even though the above discussions above rule of law and petition give a lot of enlightenment, they do not really understand the connotation of modern rule of law but just stay on the symptoms of problems. Fundamentally, modern rule of law stresses “good governance” according to circumstances instead of simply emphasizing “the supremacy of law”. Obviously, law is of great significance for “good governance” of a state, but it does not deny other governance resources than law. Western governance mode is superior but not absolutely flawless. It can be seen that the petition system has become an important customary law and a precious heritage of China’s legal construction. The petition system does not oppose modern rule of law but repairs the latter. The petition system contains a kind of values with public benefit as the core, effectively practices the mass line and strongly maintains socialist political ethics. The essence of the petition system is that the public have another way to “access to justice” after failing to pursue justice in normal ways (Cappelletti 2000) in order to obtain a kind of relief based on conscientious politics. Realizing it, we can rediscover and regain petition and offer a possibly better model for China’s legal modernization.

Irrational Petition Governance We find several interesting problems while investigating the history of petition governance. Irrational petition exists anytime, and “petition temptation” is not a normal phenomenon. In a very long time, the petition governance system is able to identify and judge petition cases and effectively govern irrational petition. The current problem of “petition

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irrationalization” is largely caused by the collapse of the petition identification system since the petition governance system loses the ability to identify and judge the right or wrong (He 2011). In the traditional society, when people were wronged and could not get relief through normal judicial procedures, they may safeguard their rights through “petition”. In the feudal period, people were often required to practice level-by-level petition system, but they were allowed to adopt leapfrog petition in special cases, directly venting their grievances to senior officials especially the emperor and pleading for grace. There were three main types of abnormal petitions. Beat a Dengwei drum, make an imperial appeal, and submit a memorial (上表) (Ying 2004). Emperor Hongwu, who was the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, requested subjects to allow people to show their talents and report corrupt officials to the emperor in Beijing, and those that impeded deliberately would be punished mercilessly (Bai 2003). In the Qing Dynasty, after adopting all local judicial remedy measures, the petitioner could file a suit in Beijing and beat the Dengwen drum outside the censorate and the government office. As judicial officials in charge, they decided which cases could be assigned to local officials for a judgment and which cases could be rejected (Jonathan 2004: 517). Fearing that petitioners, who have made appeals and even are proved unfair would petition again after thorough analysis and they would be punished for false accusation, the “judge” of trial on appeal often preferred to make the petitioner shut up instead of meeting their reasonable requirements. Specific to this situation, the imperial court released an order in 1882, which clearly told governors to punish the criminal if the petition was true or punish the plaintiff if the petition was untrue, and not to use ambiguous languages (Jonathan 2004: 534). It meant that senior officials that accepted a case should distinguish right from wrong in the petition governance process. They should punish corrupt officials and crack down irrational petitioners to prevent “good officials from being threatened by the petitioner”; “If local officials were frightened by legal pettifogger and dared not to investigate false accusation, they were unlikely to govern local government” (Jonathan 2004: 545). It was just because of distinguishing “good people” from “bad people”, “law-abiding people” from “unruly people” and “justice pursuers” from “greedy legal pettifogger” in the petition governance system that irrational petition could be governed effectively and petition order could be maintained.

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Since its founding, new China has highly valued public letters and visits and encouraged people to offer advice and suggestions to governments at different levels and the central government, including venting their grievances. At the end of 1951, petitions had a tendency to increase and then kept rising, and more and more people petitioned to leaders such as Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai, which caused huge pressure on governments at different levels. Many appeals could not be solved or were solved ineffectively by local governments and the central government, so the government had to make an explanation. Many petitioners felt dissatisfied and stayed long in Beijing until they reached their goals. “Some petitioners acted offensively because their unreasonable requests could not be satisfied. Thus, some petitioners made trouble in Zhongnanhai, or intercepted the car of leading cadres or foreign guests, or claimed meal fee and travel expense from the reception organ”; “reception personnel of some organs yielded to some deviant behaviors for fear of violating human rights” (Diao 1996: 62–63). “A few irrational and insane petitioners stayed in Beijing for a long time and had deviant behaviors. Despite a small quantity, they had great energy, did great harm and harassed the government with unreasonable demands, which seriously affected work order and petition procedure of organs and public security. According to sampling statistics, such kind of petitioners accounted for 3.7% in 1955 and the percent rose to 8% from 1956 to 1957” (Diao 1996: 73). Specific to the problem that irrational petition emerges endlessly, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee prepared a Report on Central Offices of Beijing Reporting the Problems of the Mass Work to the Central Government on November 5, 1953, which put forward some basic principles of petition governance. 1. As to just requirements of the public that should be and can be solved, we must solve them earnestly and responsibly. 2. As to the problems that should be solved but there were no conditions for solving them, we should make an explanation patiently and try to make the masses understand the government’s difficulties. 3. As to the problems that can be solved by local Party committees and governments and have not been solved, we should persuade the masses to ask for help from local governments in principle

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and central offices will not make a reply. If the petitioner still felt dissatisfied after local Party committees or governments resolved the problems, competent departments of the central government should accept the case. 4. People who made trouble out of nothing and rejected advice may be punished properly by public security and judicial departments according to seriousness of the case. People who were insolent and caused trouble, and whose problems indeed needed to be solved, should be treated by two kinds of cases. On one hand, adopt necessary measures against their insolence. On the other hand, solve their problems as appropriate. 5. We should neither entertain petitioners indiscriminately nor bear travel expenses of people in need unboundedly. Beijing Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau should issue tickets to prevent swindling (Diao 1996: 64–65). Governance of irrational petition in the collective era was mainly based on the classification of “the people” and “the enemy”. Although petition belonged to contradictions among the people, but the contradictions among the people may turn to “contradictions between the people and the enemy”. Therefore, bad people who sought benefits through petition must be cracked down, otherwise, the effectiveness of the petition system would be damaged. In the early stage of the reform and opening-up, the petition system became an important medium for putting wrongs to rights and consequently a new climax of petition emerged. However, plenty of irrational petitions occurred simultaneously and most of them were caused by repeated petitioners. According to analysis, repeated petitioners often had three situations. First, they indeed had problems, which were not solved for a long time for many reasons or were not solved thoroughly. Second, their problems had been solved, but they requested too high with serious anarchism and egoism. Third, they fled hither and thither for a long time in cities in the name of petition, begging, swindling or speculating (Diao 1996: 268). Petition governance in the 1980s formed two themes. One was to punish deviant local cadres and the other was to crack down irrational petition. The two themes were proposed on January 5, 1980 when central offices treated the petition leading group and invited responsible persons

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of the petition work leading group, the provincial public security bureau, the civil affairs bureau and the petition department of 7 provinces to attend a meeting in Beijing, requesting to solve the problems of petitions especially repeated petitions through “grasping both ends, namely nonfeasance and trouble-making, and controlling the middle” (Diao 1996: 241). The central government held the 3rd National Conference on Petitions and the secretariat of the central committee gave instructions for further improving petition work, of which the third point was “not to build an atmosphere that many historical problems need to be solved this year to avoid a new climax of petition”; the fourth point was “be determined to deal with a few so-called irrational petitioners. To criticize, educate, send back, reeducate through labor or punish according to a few irrational petitioners according to law. Relevant ministries, commissions and local governments should adopt concrete measures to prevent these people from run amuck at society (Diao 1996: 264)”. It was just because of distinguishing rational petition from irrational petition in the petition governance process that a “petition temptation” incentive mechanism was not formed. Thus, old policemen of Linxiang Police Station thought irrational petitions were not serious in the 1980s and the 1990s. In the twenty-first century, due to the excessive pursuit of social harmony and fear of social contradictions, governments at different levels tend to conceal social issues within the jurisdiction and adopt “appeasement” policy to avoid contradictions. According to the philosophical concept of social governance, the opposite and unified dialectics loses its position. Then, the difference between rational petition and irrational petitions becomes increasingly fuzzy in the petition governance system and superior units do not distinguish right from wrong but send petitions back to grassroots units and request them to handle duly. However, many problems actually cannot be solved by grassroots units, especially irrational appeals. In order to prevent repeated petitions, grassroots unit has to choose unprincipled compromise and try to meet the petitioner’s all appeals. As a result, all petitions become “rational petitions” and thus are protected. Now that all petitions are reasonable, the responsibilities for faults should be borne by governments at different levels. The petition system is filled with an ideology that the government “should atone for its crime” and more and more irrational petition phenomena cannot be criticized rightfully as before. Lin Feng, vice-governor of H Province and head

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of Provincial Public Security Department, seriously pointed out, “Our mistakes and law enforcement faults have caused economic, political and spiritual damages to the masses in varying degrees. We feel ashamed and even guilty. For such damages, we should make corrections responsibly”. Under such new petition culture of “atoning for one’s crime”, all petition events can be attributed to grassroots units, which can be explained in two ways. First, grassroots units’ faults made in the law enforcement process result in petition. Second, grassroots units do not stabilize the petitioner and consequently superior units are influenced. As a matter of fact, the second explanation contains the first, so for subordinate units, petition means fault. On the contrary, irrational petition is requested to be understood and sympathized, so “irrational petitions should be identified and handled with double cautions” (Deng and Zhuang 2005). Eventually, irrational petitions are “eliminated”. When irrational petitions are neither admitted nor cracked down, the petition system becomes a “petition elimination” system. It is believed that, the fewer petition events occur or are revealed, the stronger petition governance ability grassroots units have. Thus, “zero petition” becomes a goal for units at all levels (Du 2007). The presentation of “zero petition” is not consistent with the original intention of the petition system and violates the objective law of reality. Essentially, it is an avoidance of petition problems and a denial of the petition system. To achieve the goal of “petition elimination” and even “zero petition”, grassroots units are requested to assume more and more responsibilities. Some places even put up with “lifetime petition responsibility system”, “if petition problems are not resolved completely and the petitioner keeps petitioning, responsible leader and the police cannot be transferred to other posts and promoted. If petition problems have negative influence, responsible police should be held accountable” (Zhu 2010). From “grasping both ends and controlling the middle” to “zero petition”, it shows a great transition of the current petition governance system. Irrational petition is ignored intentionally to break constraints of the petition governance system and eventually the nature of the petition system changes.

Dialectics of Petition Governance Tolerance of irrational petition makes petition governance an opposite. Not only the goal of “petition elimination” and “zero petition” cannot

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be achieved, but also the central government will fail to attain the hope to ensure the legality, and even rational petitions will not be effectively and timely solved due to prevalence of irrational petition. This shows that abandoning dialectics of petition governance will cause very serious consequences. Whereas the petition governance system loses the ability to distinguish right from wrong, grassroots public security organs often excessively yield to hostile petitioners, which encourages irrational petition. Some public security organs pacify hostile petitioners by satisfying their demands with little or no regard for principle, muddle along, solve some unjust requirements and even “pay for safety” to reconcile the petitioner. As a result, the petitioner becomes aware of “the benefits of petition”, makes more requests, feels proud of making trouble and seeks profits through petition, which creates an illusion that “problems will be solved according to the petitioner’s attitude” and petitions to Beijing will be solved faster and more effectively with more benefits, which incites and produces hostile petition, leapfrog petition and abnormal petition in a disguised form (Wang 2008). The petitioner even blackmailed Linxiang Police Station. On May 19, 2010, Lian Fang reported to the police that she was beaten in Liuxiang Town. The police carried out investigation immediately and found that, Lian Fang’s daughter Wang Li was dating with Liu Nan from Zhoudian, but Lian Fang disagreed and asked her daughter to return home. Her daughter rejected and Lian Fang fought with Liu Nan’s families. The police of the former Liuxiang Police Station took both parties to the police station for mediation. In this process, Lian Fang and Liu Nan fought in the police office due to verbal hostility and Lian Fang destroyed an ashtray. The police stopped Lian Fang, but she didn’t listen and continued to make a scene, which attracted many onlookers and seriously affected the police station’s work order. Then, the former Liuxiang Police Station detained them according to law, but later Lian Fang was not detained for epilepsy. Lian Fang continued to make a scene on the way to the detention house and the hospital for physical examination, and torn the police until the police stopped her several times. After that, Lian Fang declared that she was beaten and injured at the police station, claimed for medical expenses and petitioned to the municipal public security bureau more than once. Since May 19, 2010, Lian Fang has petitioned to the municipal public security bureau, the district-level politics and law committee and the former

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public security sub-bureau more than once. On December 20, the directorgeneral of the municipal public security bureau made written instructions, requesting the supervision team of the supervision department of the municipal public security bureau to investigate the case. The director and the political commissar of the police station high valued the case. First, they met Lian Fang more than once and did the persuading work patiently. Then, the political commissar was identified as the leader in charge of the case and policeman Wei Xiaojun was the responsible person. Third, they actively coordinated to solve the case through Lian Fang’s social relations. Under direct leadership of the police station, policeman Wei Xiaojun communicated with Lian Fang several times about law, policy and traditional code of conduct patiently. Finally, the political commissar led Wei Xiaojun to work hard several days and Lian Fang eventually admitted her fault, understood the police’s hard work and promised not to petition again in writing.

The insider policeman told that Lian Fang promised to “stop petition” because she got money from the police station. However, the police knew that she will make trouble after she ran out of money. In recent years, the police station and the police suffered more and more “blackmail” cases and it became a big problem for public security work. For such irrational petitions, the police station often compromises to meet the petitioner’s unreasonable appeals and tries to give money to the petitioner to stop petition. However, unprincipled compromise cannot really “stop petition”, and will further incite irrational petitions. Yan Ru petitioned to the Municipal Public Security Bureau in December 2010 and reflected that her younger brother Yan Shangyong and his wife were killed and the case has not been solved until now. She requested to make greater effort to solve the case. Yan Ru also petitioned to the provincial public security department and the Ministry of Public Security. After receiving the petition case assigned by the Municipal Public Security Bureau, the acting director of Linxiang Police Station highly valued it and arranged a special stability control team. On March 23, 2011, the acting political commissar led the acting deputy director, who was in charge of criminal cases and responsible policeman Wei Xiaojun to visit and have a heart-to-heart talk with Yan Ru, honestly explaining public security organ’s procedures and regulations for handling a case according to law, and telling her that the Party committee of the Municipal Public Security Bureau highly valued it, for her understanding and support. On March 23, the

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police successfully persuaded Yan Ru to stop petitioning to Beijing and she felt satisfied and promised not to petition again.

After getting a sum of money from the police station, Yan Ru promised not to petition again. However, “successfully solving the problem” is just a written expression. In fact, Yan Ru petitioned to the municipal public security bureau again in October 2011 and soon she petitioned to Beijing. In November 2011, the Ministry of Public Security held a remote conference on governance of key petition cases among public security organs across the country, arranging public security organs to carry out governance of key petition cases and assigning 6459 key petition cases to them, including 2026 criminal cases. To earnestly implement the spirit of the conference further intensify criminal petition, duly handle a group of criminal petition cases according to law, especially petitions to Beijing, and create a harmonious and stable social environment for the success of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, the 5th Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security decided to take a “special governance action of key criminal petition cases” among criminal investigation departments across the country from January 1, 2012 to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. 9 of the cases assigned by the superior authority occurred in A City, including Yan Ru’s petition case. Nevertheless, Yan Ru petitioned again to the Ministry of Public Security on December 26, 2011 and the municipal public security bureau in January and February 2012. Facing weakness of the police station and inconsistency of the petitioners, grassroots police become increasingly negative in handing a case. They shift the responsibility as far as possible and even risk treating the petitioner rudely. In fact, the police are often helpless in front of irrational petitioners no matter how diligently they work. When the petitioner knows the current situation, that the police dare not to crack down irrational petitions, so they have nothing to fear. Even advanced person Zhang Yunquan has been fed up with petitions, saying, “I am really annoyed every day. When I enter the reception room, I told the leader that it is absolutely not a place to stay”. However, the police negativity and restlessness can just further trigger petition cases and consequently form a vicious cycle. Policeman Yu Hu was surrounded by a group of people and they requested to handle the dispute over obligation. A lent B 10,000 Yuan and B pledged

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a car to A and told A that it was his car. Afterwards, a car rental company asked A to return the car, and A knew that it didn’t belong to B and reported to the police station. Yu Hu was very impatient. He asked A and B to ask for help from the court, prevented A and the car rental company from taking the car before a solution was offered. Yu Hu asked them to leave the key on the desk. Squadron leader Sheng Dongqiang passed by and gave an advice that A took the receipt for a loan from home. After returning, A found that the car has been driven away by the car rental company. The key was still on the desk. Obviously, the car rental company had another key. A and his families got very angry and requested Yu Hu to assume the responsibility, since they thought he broke his promise and asked the car rental company to drive the car away. Yu Hu was also very angry, since it had nothing to do with him. Certainly, he was not unaccountable at all, since he left and handled his affairs when A took the receipt from home and he didn’t keep an eye on the car rental company. A patted the desk angrily and torn the mediation agreement from the register. A and his families left and threatened to petition to the municipal public security bureau.

In this case, the police’s nonfeasance is obviously a major factor of petitions. The problem is that there are many policemen as negative and restless as Yu Hu. It may not be a matter of personal quality, and unprincipled petition governance system may be the primary cause. Petition cases are hard to solve mainly because “more cases are mediated and less are solved”. Blind compromise and reconciliation and fear of cracking down irrational petitions certainly will invalidate the petition governance. The effectiveness of the petition system is determined by the ability to crack down irrational petitions, which is the first dialectic for petition governance. The petition governance system has a short-sighted goal, requesting grassroots units to control petitions as far as possible and ensuring the legality of superior units especially the central government ideologically at the sacrifice of grassroots units. Whereas superior units lose the ability to judge petition cases and shift all faults to grassroots unit objectively, grassroots units lose their authority day by day. Nevertheless, grassroots “petition elimination” cannot offset the petitions, instead, petitions keep increasing and various problems and contradictions concentrate on the central government. According to statistics, the quantity of petitions accepted by the National Public Complaints and Proposals Administration increased by

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14% in 2003, those accepted by provincial-level public complaints and proposals administrations just increased by 0.1%, those accepted by prefecture-level public complaints and proposals administrations increased by 0.3% and those accepted by county-level public complaints and proposals administrations decreased by 2.4%. Furthermore, the quantity of petitions accepted by the central government and government offices increased by 46%, those accepted by provincial-level, prefecture-level and county-level bureaus for petitions increased slightly and some even had a negative growth (Zhang 2005). According to research, if the petitioner petitions to a higher authority, their trust for the government will decrease by a level. For petitioners to provincial-level government and Beijing, their trust for the central government and provincial-level government decreases obviously (Hu 2007). Research shows that peasants highly recognized the central government when they just petitioned to Beijing and 94.6% of them thought that “the central government genuinely and sincerely welcomes peasants to petition”, but the percent decreased to 39.3% after 7 days, while the percent of peasants who thought that “the central government fears peasant’s petition” increased from 7.1% to 58.9%, the percent of peasants who thought that “the central government will retaliate petitioners” increased from 1.8% to 60.7% (Chen et al. 2011: 365–366). This shows that once grassroots units lose their authority and petition governance is no longer legal, it will be hard to ensure the legality of superior units and even the central government. From this point of view, subordinate units are a firewall of superior units, and superior units should strive to maintain the legality of subordinate units instead of hanging them in the air or emptying them. The legality of superior units and the central government can be solidified only when the governance ability and authority of grassroots units are guaranteed, which is the second type of dialectics for petition governance. The connivance of irrational petitions is essentially to crack down rational petition. First, irrational petition accounts for a very high proportion. The squadron leader of Linxiang Police Station Chen Weidong introduced that irrational petitions accepted by the police accounted for at least 95%. Rational petitions are easy to solve, but irrational ones can be seldom solved effectively. Although irrational petitions cannot be solved, they involve plenty of resources and consequently genuine rational petitions are ignored. Among irrational petitioners, repeated petitioners who make trouble out of nothing are typical. According to statistics of the

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Public Security Sub-bureau of Hongqiao District of Tianjin City, repeated petitioners account for about 4% every year. Despite a small proportion, the police spend the most manpower and material resources and the longest time on them, so it is a big challenge for the current public security work (Chen 1998). To attract attention, rational petitions will slowly turn to irrational ones. Relative to rational petitions, irrational petitioners are easier to draw attention. Many people and petitioners feel dissatisfied and criticize the government. “You bully the weak, fear the strong and yield to those who dare not to die” (Diao 1996: 235). Irrational petition wastes a lot of energy of the police, with grassroots police spending at least 1/3 of time and the director and the political commissar spending at least half of time. It directly occupies the time to handle cases and is extremely unfair for other people. Obviously, after grassroots police lose the ability to govern irrational petitions, “unruly people” increasingly occupy the petition channel and consume a lot of petition resources and consequently the way to safeguard rights through petition is obstructed. If irrational petition cannot be treated according to law, rational petitioners and other people’s legitimate rights cannot be guaranteed, which is the third kind of dialectics for petition governance.

Petition Rediscovery: Power Discipline and Right Cost A dilemma of petition is largely caused by the loss of dialectics for petition governance. A fundamental defense of the current petition governance idea of “blaming on grassroots units” is that, grassroots units are too corrupt to damage common people’s rights easily. Thus, to safeguard common people’s rights, the petitioned grassroots units “would rather be killed one thousand than absolved one”. Although grassroots unit becomes the victim, most people’s rights are safeguarded to the greatest extent. We can define this set of ideas as “power discipline theory”, which is not wrong with stressing the protection of public rights and even is highly moral. But in fact, the basic pursuit of the petition system is to offer the last right relief to the wronged people. However, if we do not evade commonsense problems deliberately but know a little about the dialectic law, we will find that “power discipline theory” or “right supreme theory” cannot exist independently, unless they accept the precondition that, any

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right should be realized at cost and any power discipline cannot deny the existence of right cost. “Power discipline theory” that denies right cost cannot realize effective power discipline, and will make the power out of control in a disguised form. In the petition governance system, the cost of judging petition cases is essentially the cost of safeguarding the petitioner’s rights. After accepting a petition case, superior units often make a judgment mainly using two methods. Superior units directly carry out investigation and hand over cases to subordinate units for investigation. As to cost, the second method costs less than the first method obviously, so it has been widely used. Due to the uniformity of local governments, the second method often weakens the effectiveness of power discipline. In the Qing Dynasty, petitions to Beijing were mainly investigated and handled by imperial commissioners at first. They could break the constraints of local governments while investigating a case in local places to restore the truth. Afterward, local governors gradually became the main judge of petitions to Beijing with the increase of such petitions. Mistakes made by subordinates were also mistakes made by governors, as head of provincial-level bureaucrat system, so governors often tended to compromise to subordinates’ injustice. Based on this, the imperial court preferred to stress the role of imperial commissioners in governing “petitions” to reserve the power of final judgment at least. The imperial commissioners were directly under the orders of the emperor and their judgments could be deemed as the emperor’s will. After the founding of new China, petition governance gradually followed the principle of “centralized management” and most letters and visits were assigned to business departments and government offices at a lower level so that “leading bodies could grasp the key points, and business departments could obtain related business information from petitions of the same kind” (Diao 1996: 60). Nevertheless, as plenty of petition cases were handed over to subordinate units, some unsatisfactory problems occurred, such as grassroots units retaliated petitioners, and so on. Thus, it was pointed out in the conference on petition work of central authorities convened on February 8, 1961 that central offices should assign persons to investigate cases and leading bodies at different levels should organize to investigate cases until at the grassroots level and petitioners were identified. Since the new century, with a sharp increase in petition cases and the loss of political principles of petition governance, superior units directly

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send petition cases received back to the original handling unit without exception and even to the policeman who handled the cases. Objectively, facing the petition trend, the central government actually had no adequate information and organizational resources to handle local affairs, so they had to rely on local governments (Zhao 2005). There were two problems. First, it was the second choice to hand over petition cases to subordinate units and the first choice was to “handle more cases and hand over less” when superior units were able to carry out investigation personally. Second, handing over petition cases to subordinate units could neither cancel the requirements for judging petition cases nor cancel superior units’ ability to make a final judgment. It means that even though petition cases were assigned to subordinate units, superior units should still assume the responsibility for effective supervision. But in practice, superior units often evaded the supervision responsibility, “handed over” petition cases and suggested subordinate units to effectively stabilize petitioners. In this case, the key for subordinate units to deal with petition cases was not to judge the truth but to conceal petition cases by all means. To achieve this goal, subordinate units will “eliminate petitions violently” or “compromise at the sacrifice of principle” (Chen 2005). As a result, superior unit’s power discipline to subordinate units caused two unexpected consequences. On the one hand, grassroots units lacked authority due to the loss of petition governance ability. On the other hand, grassroots units developed new means to evade superior unit’s power control to cause a new type of power outof-control. The cost of the current petition governance system to truly safeguard the rights of petitioners decreases significantly and faults are directly shifted to grassroots units without investigation, while the cost of endless “petition elimination” increases day by day. In a petition case, to safeguard the petitioner’s legitimate rights, the petitioned unit should bear the cost of right relief, including investigation and judgment. But under certain economic and social conditions, it is obviously impossible that the government bears the costs for truth restoration and right relief, at least it is hard to collect evidence technically. Generally, the petitioner is requested to bear certain costs of right relief through system setup. Most obviously, the petitioner needs to pay legal costs and attorney fees in the lawsuit system. The purpose is to prevent opportunists from seeking profits. Restricted by right relief cost, opportunist may give up speculating because the loss outweighs the gain, in order not to occupy limited right relief resources. Once constraints of the

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petitioner’s costs to protect rights are canceled, the petition channel may be occupied by trivial and unreasonable appeals and consequently the way to safeguard rights through petition is obstructed. The petitioner’s right relief cost mainly includes three parts. First, the petitioner should bear various economic losses on safeguarding rights through petition, including inevitable physical and mental fatigue and pain. In ancient times, officials believed that only the wronged people would endure economic and physical sufferings for petitioning to Beijing at a long distance. In the collective era, the central government bearing the petitioner’s traveling expenses indiscriminatingly could just cause more unjust behaviors in the name of petition to cheat traveling expenses, so the Ministry of Internal Affairs built Yongding sand and gravel site at Lugou Bridge in August 1958 and organized petitioners who were able to work and had no traveling expenses to return home to work to earn traveling expenses, which was supported by relevant authorities of the central government and petitioners. On May 18, 1961, the sand and gravel factory of the Ministry of Internal Affairs organized petitioners to work, summarized experience and explicitly pointed out that they mainly organized petitioners who made trouble out of nothing, swindled traveling expenses, were unwilling to work and often travel to cities to work temporarily and earn traveling expenses, which not only saved expenditures but also solved the problem that a few petitioners cheated traveling expenses. Nowadays, local governments often bear petitioners’ traveling expenses to go back home, including food and accommodation. Petitioners often take advantage of the government’s fear of petition to coerce the government to bear other losses thus incurred. Therefore, petitioners bear increasingly lower economic costs in the petition process and even may “earn money”. Then, petitioners should bear corresponding costs of the petition system, of which the most important is level-by-level petition system and petition closing system. Traditionally, leapfrog petitioners were often punished. According to legal provisions, any cases could not be reported to Beijing as long as they were on trial or had not been submitted to the provincial-level government. Since the founding of new China, levelby-level petition has been encouraged. Obviously, level-by-level petition requests the petitioner to make greater efforts economically and spiritually with the purpose of reducing superior unit’s stress and saving energy to solve the problems that grassroots units could not solve. The petition

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closing system was the result of petition events, because endless petitions could just occupy other petitioners’ resources to invalidate justice. Certainly, the petition closing system may signify inadequate right relief for individual petitioners, which is a kind of institutionalization costs. Nowadays, leapfrog petitions are very common, especially petition to Beijing becomes a choice for more and more petitioners. As long as the petitioner is reluctant to give up, they may petition for life and even the next generation may continue to petition. There are numerous repeated petitioners and even some people take petition as their work. Finally, petitioners should bear the punishments for unreasonable behaviors and other speculative behaviors. A benign petition governance system can not only realize right relief for rational petition but also punish irrational petition. In the Qing Dynasty, the Beijing petition control system should avoid three types of threats under the emperor’s control, that are “Coercion” or control the emperor and subordinates, ungrounded petition and trivial petition. In an extreme way, commit suicide in front of the censorate to humiliate officials to realize judicial justice, could not lead the emperor to accept the appeals, and the unyielding petitioners should be severely sanctioned. In 1792, Emperor Qianlong ordered the governor-general and the governor to proclaim an imperial edict, welcoming the wronged to petition to Beijing but severely punishing those that practiced fraud. In the collective era and in the early stage of reform and opening-up, the state strictly controlled irrational petitions. The central government believes some petitioners affect the handler by exaggerating or making up the facts or saying sentimental words to achieve personal purpose. Thus, the handler must be able to identify the truth and have the criteria for right and wrong. Deng Xiaoping pointed out that “there are numerous petitioners, among which a few are bad”. But today, irrational petitions are often shielded and condoned and even further strengthened due to unprincipled compromise of grassroots units. In conclusion, petition governance units are unwilling to invest more into right relief in petition governance and they almost completely cancel right relief costs, for which safeguarding rights through petition becomes unsustainable. Meanwhile, power discipline through petition is caught in a dilemma and its primary hazard is catering for irrational petition appeals and obstructing rational petition channels. In those years, Emperor Jiaqing had a good intention to break a path to accept all appeals, but it facilitated legal pettifoggers and others’ control over the

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system. It restricted the ability of the system to achieve the common goal of pursuing justice and to reveal judicial fraud and help the emperor with political control (Jonathan 2004: 548). Then, we can figure out a basic dialectic method for petition governance that, there will be no adequate right relief or power discipline without adequate right relief costs.

References Bai Hua. 2003. Research on Political System of Prefectures and Counties in the Ming Dynasty, 147. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press. Cappelletti. 2000. Welfare State and Access to Justice. Translated by Liu Junxiang Beijing: Law Press. Chen Jianchu. 2005. Cause of Petition Problems of Grassroots Public Security Organ and Countermeasures. Policing Studies (5). Chen Xiaobo. 1998. Cause and Characteristic of Regular Petitioners of Public Security Organ and Countermeasures. Journal of Hubei University of Police (5). Chen Xiaojun et al. 2011. Research on Peasant’s Petition and Social Stability, 367. Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press. Deng Zhihui and Huining Zhuang. 2005. Public Security Organ of Henan Province Makes Breakthroughs in “Petition”. Outlook Weekly, (5). Diao Jiecheng. 1996. Petition History. Beijing: Beijing Economics College Press. Du Changqiao. 2007. “Zero Petition” and Great Harmony. China Police Daily (7). He Xuefeng. 2011. Analysis of the Relationship Between State and Peasant— With Consciousness as the Source of Peasant’s Petition. Tianjin Social Sciences (4). Hu Rong. 2007. Peasant’s Petition and Loss of Political Trust. Sociological Studies (3). Ji Weidong. 2009. “Appeal” and “Petition”. Zhejiang People’s Congress (11). Jiang Liya, Zhu Fang, Yang Xiufu, and Li Xinjian. 2008. Research on the Construction of Long-term Mechanism for Petition of Public Security Organ. Policing Studies (5). Jonathan Ocko. 2004. Make Every Endeavor to Go to Beijing: Beijing Petition in the Qing Dynasty, from Gaodaoyun et al.: Discussion about Traditions of Chinese Law by American Scholars (Revised and Enlarged Edition), 517. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press. Li Qiuxue. 2009. Discussion about Chinese Petition History, 373. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press. Lin Laifan. 2001. From Constitutional Norm to Standardization of Constitution, 149. Beijing: Law Press.

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Wang Jinzhong. 2008. Understanding of Petition of Public Security Organ (I). Journal of Liaoning Police Academy (2). Ying Xing. 2004. Petition Relief as Special Administrative Relief. Chinese Journal of Law (3). Yu Jianrong. 2005. Criticism on Chinese Petition System. Chinese Reform (2). Zhang Haihong. 2005. Source and Current Situation of New China’s Petition System. Unity (1). Zhang Shengzu. 1997. Guidelines for Application of Regulations on Supervision of Public Security Organs, 90. Beijing: Publishing House of People’s Public Security University of China. Zhao Xiaoli. 2005. Institutional Logic of Petition. 21st Century. Zhou Yongkun. 2006. Selection of Route of Petition Trend and Chinese Dispute Resolution System. Journal of Jinan University (Philosophy and Social Sciences) (1). Zhu Baiqiang. 2010. Lifetime Accountability of Petition, The Police Relives Public Complaint. Baoji Daily, B02 on December 23. Zuo Weimin and He Yongjun . 2005. Tradition of Politics and Law and Legal Reason--Research with Petition System of the Supreme Court as the Center. Journal of Sichuan University (Philosophy and Social Sciences) (1).

CHAPTER 10

Conclusion

Petition Governance and Power Decision-Making Ability Petition is age-old as a unique Chinese political system and it is mainly aimed at solving many problems beyond the law, especially offering a kind of relief approaches “close to justice” for the wronged.1 Strictly speaking, right relief through petition has surpassed common legal acts and it is essentially a political behavior. Thus, the state often upholds a political attitude toward feedback of petition cases, such as dispatching of an imperial commissioner. The petition system reveals the truth of a case by virtue of superior power operation and re-handles the case to realize certain “individualized justice”. However, petition was paradoxical in recent years. Not only did the ability to solve the problems weakened greatly, but also petition became a problem itself to be governed. A sharp increase in the quantity of petitions has been increasingly deemed

1 In fact, function of the petition system is far more than right relief. A very important function of the petition system is the central government’s monitoring of local government.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 167 Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Huihuang, Petition Against the Police, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0_10

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as a kind of social hazards and “petition elimination” becomes a vital governance task. Outstanding performance of law enforcement standardization in disciplining the police’s “tough power”, such as violence, does not contain the tough stance of the petition against the police fundamentally, which indicates that it is infeasible to explain “right safeguarding theory” in practice. Despite law enforcement standardization, grassroots police can still carry out “petition elimination” activities using various “soft powers”, such as bribery, and the governance resources are more transferred than weakened. It is visible that neither “right safeguarding theory” nor “governance theory” can explain why petitions have become a problem. The root of the problem is the loss of the power decision-making ability of petition governance. So-called “power decision-making ability” in this book refers to the ability of the petition system to identify and judge right or wrong and such identification and judgment have an executive force in practice. Therefore, “petition governance loses power decision-making ability” refers to that the petition governance system is a system in name only, but it is unable to identify, judge and practice right or wrong. In order to demonstrate that power decision-making ability is the primary cause for petitions to become a problem, it is necessary to rebuild an ideal petition system. An ideal petition process includes the following four stages. First, grievance is “manufactured” in the process of grassroots governance, which is the origin of all petitions. The key of this stage is that the central government should assign most social governance tasks to local governments and must trust them and endow them with a certain autonomous right. As long as the enthusiasm for local governance is fully exploited, most social contradictions can be dissolved at the basic level instead of pouring into the petition channel. Then, the parties involved start to petition after using various normal legal ways. Since ancient times, petition systems such as “petitioning to Beijing” and “beating a Dengwen drum” have not been the preferred relief approach and a petition has been the last choice when appeals could not be satisfied. Such system design is reasonable since it sets a certain cost of petition to negatively stimulate some irrational petitions so as not to occupy limited petition resources. After a round of screening, a small number of petition cases to superior units are often wronged and it is the third stage of the petition process, namely “investigation”. Now that grassroots officials are accused, petition cases cannot be sent back simply but senior officials such as “imperial commissioner” should carry out an investigation to reveal the

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truth. Starting top-down investigation procedures is essentially a denial of general legal procedures and revealing the truth through power can be deemed as a political process. The top-down power can reduce or prevent the interference of grassroots officials in the investigation process and the result is often more just. After the truth is revealed, it is the last stage, namely “judgment”. Judgment may be the most important link of petition governance, since it judges right or wrong of a case to repair legal justice. According to judgment, all parties relating to the petition are handled timely due to their behavior. Both local officials who cause grievances and irrational petitioners will be severely punished. In an ideal petition governance process, power decision-making ability, namely the ability to identify and judge right or wrong, is fully reflected. In recent years, petition practice took on a different look and petition evolved from “a problem-solving mechanism” to “a problem-making mechanism”. Objectively, interest adjustment and conflict arising from social transformation offer a hotbed for the sharp increase in petitions, unemployment and invisible unemployment in social transformation also increase the opportunity of petition. In the meantime, traffic conditions improve with economic and social development reduced the petition costs (Su 2010). In the context of social transformation and due to Chinese petition system’s insensitiveness to dispute resolution, more and more contradictions pour into the petition channel, which forms a pattern of “petition explosion” to some extent. Fairly speaking, it is scarce that the quantity of petitions soared in the petition governance history, which is obviously a new topic for the state. Actually, petition becomes a problem not because of an increase in the number of wronged petitioners but because of increasingly serious irrationalization of rational petitions, which is directly connected to the loss of power decision-making ability in the petition governance process. Analyzed according to the petition procedure, the loss of power decision-making ability is first reflected in the central government’s distrust for local governments and the superior unit’s distrust for subordinate units. The superior unit and the central government try to do everything all by themselves and make direct contact with every society, which further intensifies people’s distrust for grassroots units, blindly motivates petitioners and causes more petitions. It is deemed as an embodiment of power decision-making ability is because the superior unit judges grassroots units unilaterally and abstractly instead of judging right or wrong comprehensively and concretely. Although grassroots units’ violation

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certainly exists, it is absolutely incorrect to totally repudiate it. Nevertheless, public administrative reforms in recent years, including government system reform and police system reform, were conducted to weaken the autonomy of grassroots units actually. From this point of view, “autonomy supporter’s” criticism and reflection on public administrative reforms are reasonable (Zhao 2010). Due to contraction of finance, personnel and authority, grassroots units’ social governance ability weakens, which obviously directly affects its authorities. Common people increasingly distrust grassroots units and choose to raise appeals to higher authorities. Then, the loss of power decision-making ability is reflected in canceling the petition cost of the petition governance system and the superior unit often accept petitions even if normal legal relief approaches are not exhausted. Obviously, people are willing to petition due to minimization of petition cost and liberalization of petition behavior. Petition can realize a face-to-face dialogue between the parties involved and more powerful leaders, and the dialogue is very likely to have a substantial impact on the case, which appears to be more attractive than regular legal proceedings. Thus, petition becomes a rational choice. A more fundamental problem is that abandoning all petition costs attracts not only more “wronged people” but also numerous irrational petitioners. The existence significance of petition cost is to negatively stimulate irrational petition and canceling this limitation is an open door to opportunists. Cancelation of petition cost is taken as an embodiment of the loss of power decisionmaking ability on the precondition that all petitioners are “wronged” and it is unnecessary to distinguish right from wrong. Intervention of opportunists occupies limited petition resources, which is obviously a reason why petitions have become a problem. Third, the loss of power decision-making ability is reflected in the superior unit’s loss of “investigation” ability. Higher authority’s “investigation” is obviously a major link of seeking for the truth of a petition case and it is the basis for sticking to principle. Due to the weakening of grassroots governance ability and minimization of petition cost, the number of petition cases accepted by superior units has objectively exceeded their “investigation” ability. Since the petition governance system is destroyed, superior units cannot concentrate on handling petition cases but have to assign them to grassroots unit to “duly handle them”, though superior units show great distrust. Consequently, a very strange phenomenon appears. Superior units strive to make grassroots units’ governance ability

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impracticable and intensify their responsibility for petition governance, which builds a “distrustful dependency relationship in between”. A petition case is sent back to grassroots units, while its nature has changed and grassroots units no longer handle it simply as a petition but the petition event, since this “petition event” becomes a new “governance event” after assigned by the superior unit and is of greater importance. It is just because of this that the top–bottom petition assessment mechanism is actually aimed at reducing “petition events”. How does it reduce petition events is a traditional grassroots governance topic. Are grassroots units reliable? The petition system is set to avoid irresponsibility of grassroots units and it is a hidden danger to request grassroots units to hear their cases. In the situation that “petition explodes” and superior units have to assign most petition cases to grassroots units, we should ask the following questions. (1) Will grassroots units reinvestigate the cases carefully? (2) If they do, will new judgments made by them be effective? The answer is no for “judgment problem” described below. The loss of power decision-making ability is reflected in fuzzification of the criteria for right and wrong. Generally, superior units do not distinguish right from wrong but send back petition cases to grassroots units. Objectively, superior units do not know the truth of cases since they less and less participate in “investigation”. What’s more important, they are afraid of offending petitioners due to judgment, and especially when superior units make a denial, the petitioner may petition to a higher authority. Once superior units make a judgment ambiguously, subordinate units will make an invalid judgment, because the petitioner can still petition to superior units after rejected by grassroots units, but superior units still will “send petition cases back”. In this case, the criteria for petition change. That is, we no longer stress whether a petition “case” is right or wrong but whether a “petition” case is right or wrong. For superior units, petition means dereliction of duty of subordinate units. It is right to control petition and wrong to lose control, which is the nature of the current petition assessment system. Then, “all petitions are rational” becomes a strange ideology and all petition events are necessarily ascribed to subordinate units’ fault, which is not necessarily the fault of cases but the fault of losing control of petition. Therefore, it is unnecessary for grassroots units to reinvestigate petition cases. Such pan-ideology directly pushes the petition system to a dead end so that it cannot solve the problems but becomes the center of making problems.

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Fundamentally, the loss of power decision-making ability of petition governance is a consequence of change in “contradictory philosophy” since the reform and opening-up. In the collective era, we advocated “fighting philosophy” for dispute resolution and considered disputes and contradictions as normal in the society. As long as internal contradictions are fully reflected, we can find a correct way to resolve them (Jiang 2001: 312). “Fighting philosophy” in the collective era was built on “obedient citizens-unruly people” or “people-enemies” discourse and based on this the political principle of “justice” was outputted. “Fighting philosophy” in the post-collective era was just the opposite. Disputes and contradictions were no longer a medium promoting social development and educating the masses but a force destroying political authority and social stability, “fighting” can just increase new contradictions and it must be completely eradicated. Thus, classification of “people” and “enemies” is no longer legal and the power decision on judging right or wrong is quickly declining in the strong discourse of pragmaticism. Based on such discourse, prevention and control of contradictions become a guiding thought of the petition system in the new era in place of dispute resolution. For fear of social contradictions and conflicts, practical petition work no longer sticks to “justice”, instead, the main goal of petition governance is to make concessions to avoid trouble, blur the line between right and wrong and conduct unprincipled compromise. The loss of power decision-making ability fuzzes up the criteria for petitions and consequently the petition governance system cannot distinguish rational petition from irrational petition. As the petition governance system loses the ability to identify and judge right or wrong, the problem of “judging the nature” of petition no longer exists and the only problem is the petition quantity. Then, reducing and eliminating the petition quantity becomes “a rational choice” of petition governance, and interestingly, the significance of petition governance is canceled. In an ideal petition process, petition governance includes without the limitation of reduction and elimination of petitions, but the more fundamental goal is to realize right relief and crack down deviant behaviors, since petition governance is essentially a political issue. Reducing and eliminating the petition quantity is only an irrelevant power technology problem and it is nothing else but a disappointing insoluble statistical problem after political nature of petition governance is canceled. All problems may pour into the petition channel and there will be more and more irrational appeals.

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The emergence of irrational petitions, especially profit-driven petition, is the most serious manifestation that petition becomes a problem after the loss of power decision-making ability. From of old, a phenomenon that unruly people appealed for help to higher authorizes or lodged a false accusation has existed and an ideal petition governance system should be able to identify and crack down it. The current petition governance system loses the ability to identify irrational petitions and it is hard to implement it effectively despite regulations on cracking down irrational petitions of the central government and local governments. Endless petition cases can just be handled through “violence” or “bribery”. The police find that they will not eliminate petitions but offend petitioners and encourage them to petition repeatedly if they strictly observe the regulations and the superiors will blame the police for new petitions. Thus, the police would rather adopt other nonstandard petition elimination techniques than abide by the law, for example, try to satisfy the petitioner’s requirements, even if some requirements are not reasonable. Soon, people find a way to seek extra interests through petition, petition becomes a pressure tactics and the petitioner uses the police’s fear of petition to blackmail them severely. According to my investigation experience, petition has gradually become a means for petitioners to seek personal interests. As petition is profitable, why not seek personal interests through it? More and more irrational petitions and profit-driven petitions occur and they quickly change the nature of petition and occupy limited petition resources to slowly obstruct the way of safeguarding rights through petition (Lin 2012). Irrational petitioners are likely to become “specialized petitioners” due to their personality and “rich” experience and they not only seek personal interests but also guide or replace others to seek more interests. Practice has proved that experienced “specialized petitioners” are often prone to arouse concern of the petition governance system and their irrational appeals are easier to satisfy. Grassroots units take them as “a key object” and input almost all petition resources on them. The truly wronged and honest petitioners will not make trouble, so they will be not concerned by the petition governance system. To scramble for petition resources against irrational petitioners, rational petitioners have to increasingly arouse concern in an irrational and even illegal way. As a result, the petition system attracts more and more petitions even if it cannot solve the problems. Besides, irrational petition increases and rational petition gradually turns to irrational petition, resulting in alienation of the petition system.

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Construction of Law Enforcement Standardization and Legal Involution The forming logic of “petition alienation” is discussed in the previous part. This part is the second step to demonstrate “legal involution”, to analyze how “law enforcement standardization” walks to the dilemma of involution under the influence of “petition alienation”. When power decision-making ability is lost, the petition governance system is no longer able to identify, judge and practice right and wrong and the alienated petition against the police is opposed to policing rule of law, and consequently policing legal construction is caught in a dilemma of involution. In other words, the police’s law enforcement is gradually standardized and the demand for solving social contradictions in a nonstandard way increases. I found in the research of H Province that policing petition case increases and nonstandard petition elimination technology becomes increasingly diversified with law enforcement standardization. The goal of modern rule of law is to realize the rule of law of social control. To be specific, the goal of policing rule of law is to realize ordering and regularization of social control through law enforcement standardization. Roughly speaking, there are three social control modes. First is endogenous social control, to realize social control through socialized ways such as public opinion, moral rule and traditional code of conduct. Second is political social control, to realize social control through top–bottom political mobilization, especially leader’s charm. Third is legal social control, to realize social control through formulating systems such as law, rule and discipline. With regard to social development and change, endogenous social control appears to be powerless in the stranger society with high population mobility and a complex modern society needs more external control measures. Political social control is suitable for a special social change period and it cannot offer stable rules and systems, so it can easily lead to new disorder. For modern society, legal social control is probably an ideal choice for it can offer relatively stable rules of conduct so that social control becomes a predictable and controllable project. It should be pointed out that the significance of endogenous and political social control is not canceled through stressing

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the adaptation of legal social control to a modern society, but legal control slowly takes a leading position relatively to the latter.2 After the Ministry of Public Security included law enforcement standardization in “three constructions” in 2008, to comprehensively and deeply promote law enforcement standardization, the Ministry of Public Security released Guiding Opinions about Energetically Strengthening Standardization of Law Enforcement of Public Security Organ, General Arrangements for Standardization of Law Enforcement of Public Security Organs across the Country, Stage Objectives and Performance Criteria for Law Enforcement Standardization of Public Security Organ and other important documents and introduced a series of supporting measures such as Law Enforcement Rules, Regulations on the Police’s Interrogation and Examination of Public Security Organ, law enforcement qualification grade examination, law enforcement informatization, legal system and law enforcement place setting specification. Presently, a fairly perfect “working mechanism” has been basically formed. To energetically strengthen law enforcement standardization, the Ministry of Public Security modified or formulated procedural regulations such as Handling Procedures for Road Traffic Accidents, Handling Procedures for Unlawful Acts against Road Traffic Safety and Drug Detection Procedures in 2008 and strived to enhance the degree of law enforcement standardization. According to my research, grassroots police’s law enforcement is indeed standardized, especially the abuse of violence is rarely seen. However, unexpected new objectionable practices occur in the law enforcement process, such as abuse of mediation, negative law enforcement, satisfying irrational appeals against the law, the police station and the police “pay for safety”, and so on. If nonstandard law enforcement of the police is a kind of “hard power deviance” before law enforcement standardization, new nonstandard law enforcement arising from law enforcement standardization is “soft power deviance” and both lead to the collapse of legal authority. Although “greatly enhancing law enforcement credibility of public security organ” is the basic objective of the Ministry of Public Security to promote law enforcement standardization, practice has proved that credibility of public security organs especially grassroots units is not enhanced but decreased substantially. A main 2 Pound pointed out that “since the sixteenth century, law has become the best tool of social control” in western countries and “the final effective tool” to control the society in developed countries (Pound 1984: 12–89).

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reason is alienation of petition against the police, which is the most troublesome, the most terrifying and the most helpless “incantation” for grassroots police. It is just in the abnormal context of petition alienation that law enforcement standardization cannot achieve the goal but falls into the dilemma of involution. Law enforcement standardization goes to the opposite through strengthening and solidifying alienation of petition against the police. Specific internal mechanism is as follows. First, law enforcement standardization further places grassroots units in an untrustworthy context and further weakens social control ability. Although law enforcement standardization is intended to optimize public security organ’s social control ability, powers of grassroots units are taken back with law enforcement standardization, which damages grassroots governance ability objectively. In essence, law enforcement standardization is a process of police affairs concentration, in which superior units monitor and discipline subordinate units more. It not only is indeed conducive to enhancing public security organ’s macro-control ability, but also weakens grassroots units’ enthusiasm for law enforcement. Limiting the discretion of the police’s law enforcement is bad for humanized law enforcement sometimes. As a matter of fact, grassroots police’s passivity and contraction of law enforcement resources will heavily weaken the social control ability, which largely stimulates more petitions. Second, petition against the police has a very low threshold, but law enforcement standardization further lowers the threshold so that little faults made by public security organs in the law enforcement process become “nonstandard law enforcement” or “law enforcement fault” and thus trigger and even increase petitions. According to my research, many petitions are just caused by the police’s indifference or impulsive words and they do not involve substantive issues on law enforcement. However, these defects become a cause of petition in the discourse of law enforcement standardization. It should be mentioned that it would rather be an accidental objective consequence than the original intention of law enforcement standardization. It is different in approach but equally satisfactory in result of Huntington’s viewpoint of corruption. He considers a main reason why modernization produces corruption is “modernization involves change of basic social values. These behaviors that are acceptable and legal according to traditional norm become unacceptable and corrupt behaviors in modernist’s mind. Therefore, social corruption in the context of modernization is more norm deviating from the recognized behavioral

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pattern than behavior deviating from the recognized norm to some extent (Huntington 1989).” Third, law enforcement standardization strengthens superior units’ dependence on subordinate units and such dependence endows subordinate units with certain autonomous rights. On one hand, law enforcement standardization attracts more petitions and superior units are more unlikely to “investigate” personally but send them back. On the other hand, law enforcement standardization strengthens grassroots units’ responsibility and petition is considered to be caused by nonstandard law enforcement, so it is so-called “first acceptance responsibility system”. Although grassroots units have corresponding autonomous rights upon commission of superior units, such autonomous rights are not used to reinvestigate and judge cases but become a tool of “soft power deviance”. Fourth, law enforcement standardization strengthens superior units’ attitude toward imputing the responsibility to subordinate units and further promotes the alienation of petition against the police. Law enforcement standardization is practiced on the precondition that “petition is caused by nonstandard law enforcement”, so superior units will blame grassroots units in the case of petition. Superiors often acquire related information of cases only by the petitioner’s statement, and the petitioner often behaves mildly in front of superiors, so superiors always stand that the parties involved are unlikely to petition if grassroots units could carry out the work as kindly and pleasantly as them. Petition means fault of grassroots units. If grassroots units defend themselves, they will just be identified as shirking the responsibility. Fifth, in the discourse of law enforcement standardization, grassroots police have to prove their “standardization” through nonstandard law enforcement. Due to the loss of power decision-making ability of petition governance, grassroots units have only one way to prove standard law enforcement through “preventing the occurrence of petition”, and a shortcut is to “eliminate petitions” through “violence” or bribery. Obviously, these methods are not consistent with law enforcement requirements. This shows that law enforcement standardization does not lead to legalization of social control but cause the difficulty in “irreversible petition”. So-called “irreversible petition” refers to resolving disputes or meeting other interest appeals more effectively through petition when petition elimination technology is alienated and the threshold of petition is continuously lowered and petition becomes a routine means in place of other right relief methods. Thus, the parties involved often

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petition to the public security department at a higher level immediately after calling the police and even directly petition without reporting a case. Now that petition elimination becomes the ultimate goal of petition governance, grassroots police can just resolve or evade contradictions by convenient means, such as mediate the cases that should not be mediated and keep mediating the cases that should be mediated just one time, though handling method has been explicitly stipulated by law. More exaggerated things happen when irrational petitions are handled. To persuade petitioners to stop petitioning, the police have to implore them humbly, pay for satisfying their requirements, do their ideological work through social acquaintance and bargain over unreasonable huge compensation. To evade petition problems, the authority of grassroots public security organs almost vanishes. According to objectives of policing rule of law, these strange phenomena should not happen, but the reality is becoming increasingly fierce. Finally, more and more petitions especially the increase of irrational petitions further intensify the goal to eliminate petitions and law enforcement standardization. Law enforcement standardization does not achieve the expected result and the reason is often attributed to “nonstandard law enforcement” naturally, so a new round of law enforcement standardization is promoted more energetically. Police power is further disciplined and accuracy of law enforcement technology is controlled more accurately. As an extreme, public security departments even put forward the concept of “zero tolerance” of law enforcement fault.3 Then, grassroots units’ social control ability is further weakened, the threshold of petition against the police is further lowered, the responsibility for nonstandard law enforcement is further intensified and the appeal to prove “standardization” through nonstandard law enforcement is further strengthened. Consequently, the more law enforcement standardization is stressed the more nonstandard law enforcement is, and the police are caught in a dilemma of “legal involution”. The basic logic of policing legal involution is shown below. [The loss of power decision-making ability of petition governance makes petition elimination a goal, which results in alienation of petition elimination technology + standardization of law enforcement lowers the 3 In 2008, the Public Security Department of Henan Province decided to carry out “zero fault law enforcement” activity among public security organs in the whole province to improve the law enforcement level of public security organs (Zhang 2008).

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threshold of petition]——>[More petitions and irrational petitions]——> [Further stress the purpose to eliminate petition + further stress standardization of law enforcement]—— >[Further alienate petition elimination technology + further lower the threshold of petition]—— >[More petitions and irrational petitions]…[The more legal measures are stressed the more deviated consequences are from the rule of law]——>[Involution of police’s rule of law].

Reconstruction of Power Decision-Making Ability Neither “right safeguarding theory” nor “governance theory” offer a set of reasonable frameworks of interpretation to out of control petition against the police, since the true cause is not “power disproportionality” but the loss of power decision-making ability of petition governance. The loss of the ability to identify, judge and practice right and wrong makes petition an irreversible process and leads to a dilemma of involution of policing rule of law. Law enforcement standardization is originally a crucial means for policing rule of law, but now it causes completely opposite consequences. The more legal measures are stressed the farther they will deviate from legal results. Public security is a main objective of social control and it becomes an inevitable choice through legal social control when endogenous social control and political social control cannot adapt to the sophisticated modern society. Legal social control restricts operation of the entire society through a set of stable legal rules. Undoubtedly, involution of policing rule of law is radically a denial of legal social control and it will probably make the whole society fall into a disordered and jungle society where everyone formulates rules and consequently public security may collapse. Involution of policing rule of law actually introduces an “irreversible petition” process. Petition replaces other routine relief methods and makes a lot of social contradictions insoluble. When petition becomes an irreversible process, more and more irrational petitions will pour into the petition channel and occupy resources of rational petition. To scramble for relief resources against irrational petition, rational petition gradually turns to irrational petition and the petition system as a right relief method is alienated. When petition replaces other legal relief measures and its relief function is alienated, policing legal construction will go to the opposite side.

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Then, how to re-understand the relationship between petition and rule of law? First, reflecting involution of policing rule of law does not mean to oppose law enforcement standardization. Law enforcement standardization will not certainly lead to involution of policing rule of law, unless “the power decision-making ability of petition governance is lost”. Law enforcement standardization is a kind of discipline against state violence and it is of great significance. Despite the differences in regime and political party system, “unrestricted power is bound to result in overexpansion” is a common law. Therefore, any state that tries to maintain long-term political stability will invent a power discipline mechanism suitable for its national conditions. From this point of view, it is an important institutional development process to carry out law enforcement standardization activities continuously. Besides, law enforcement standardization is essential for policing rule of law, which cannot be realized without law enforcement standardization. It should be mentioned that law enforcement standardization limits the public power to run according to specified procedures in the specific range, but it does not mean to cancel the public power. Then, the root of involution of policing rule of law is not law enforcement standardization but institutional operation of petition against the police. The loss of power decision-making ability of petition governance is the primary cause of involution of policing rule of law, so rebuilding the power decision-making ability is an important means to promote policing rule of law. When the petition system is considered as an important supplement of China’s legal construction, we refer to an ideal petition system, which has the power decision-making ability to identify and judge right and wrong and really effectively realize right relief. However, the current petition system is obviously alienated and it leads policing legal construction to the dilemma of “involution”. To truly promote modernization of policing rule of law, we should not completely eradicate the petition system, actually petition cannot be canceled at all as a social need, but rebuild the power decision-making ability of petition governance and restore the petition system. To rebuild the power decision-making ability, we should reflect “social conflict philosophy” first and admit the necessity of social contradiction and opposition instead of filling with fear unilaterally. The state should not adopt “unprincipled compromise” but set up the criteria for justice in the process of social governance and truly safeguard the public interests.

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We should not only standardize power deviance but also be vigilant at “seeking personal interests in the name of safeguarding rights” to build a healthy society. Of course, it does not mean that we should return to “fighting philosophy” in the collective era but rebuild a kind of “political principles” suitable for the modern society in order to identify, judge and practice right and wrong in the process of state governance. It should be mentioned that grassroots units play a critical role in forming a benign order of petition governance. Thus, their governance authority cannot be canceled just because they probably infringe the petitioner’s rights and interests. The central government should cooperate with local governments in undertaking the responsibility for petition governance. Grassroots units should give play to “petition identification”, distinguish rational petition from irrational petition and make effective decisions. In that case, cases entering the petition governance system especially irrational petition will decrease significantly. Except for protecting grassroots units’ governance ability, superior units should also improve the power monitoring mechanism. The purpose of the petition system is to reveal the truth through top–bottom power intervention. After identified and governed by grassroots units, cases entering the petition governance system keep decreasing and superior units should concentrate on solving key and difficult cases and supervise grassroots petition governance. Both the litigation system and the petition system are aimed at safeguarding and repairing the damaged rights. Nevertheless, any rights should be run and maintained at costs. Costless right system will just trigger “right explosion” and affect the realization of basic rights. Thus, to improve the petition system as a right relief, we must rebuild a cost mechanism for petition, including level-to-level petition system and petition termination system. We should realize that the petition termination system is actually an important guarantee for right relief. Endless petitions will just occupy limited petition resources and damage other petitioners’ rights and interests. In a word, petition governance should be dialectic. On one hand, we should discipline government power and safeguard the petitioner’s rights. On the other hand, we cannot adopt unprincipled compromise for fear of offending petitioners to effectively redress an injustice and not to obstruct the way of safeguarding rights through petition.

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References Huntington. 1989. Political Order in the Changing Society. Translated by Wang Guanhua et al. Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company. Jiang Shigong. 2001. Mediation, Rule of Law and Modernity: Research on Chinese Mediation System. Beijing: China Legal System Publishing House. Lin Huihuang. 2012. Beware That the Way to Safeguard Rights Through Petition Is Blocked. Phoenix Weekly (15). Roscoe Pound. 1984. Social Control by Law-Task of Law. Translated by Shen Zongling and Dong Shizhong. Beijing: Commercial Press. Su Li. 2010. Active Judiciary and Big Mediation. China Legal Science (1). Zhao Xiaofeng. 2010. Four Logic of Reform of Taxation Expenses—Discussion About Generation and Evolution Logic of State Power Legitimacy Dilemma Before and After Reform of Taxation Expenses. Journal of Party School of Fujian Provincial Party Committee of the CPC (1). Zhang Xiaolei. 2008. Henan Carries Out “Zero Fault Law Enforcement” Activities. China Police Daily, No. 7, May 2.

Postscript

Petition against the Police, Public Security Mediation, Policing Reform and Linxiang Police are tetralogy of my studies on the police. Though immature, they are commonly characterized in plenty of primary data and internal mechanisms extracted from these data. If you could read them patiently, you may find that the explanation in the books is novel and even traitorous but enlightening. The studies on the police cannot be completed without the help of the following persons. First, I would like to express gratitude to my master and doctoral supervisor Professor He Xuefeng. I got acquainted with Professor He by accident when I was very distressed. Due to huge pressure, I hesitated to further study. Professor He encouraged and supported me to get out of the dilemma and I was really touched by his sincere concern for the fate of the nation and realized that I could get rid of pain only becomes a part of something bigger. Guided by Professor He, I read a lot of classic works of social sciences. In 2010, after graduated from the Law School of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, I continued to study for a PhD of Sociology at China Rural Governance Research Center in advance. Through more than 100 days of fieldwork every year, I had a profound understanding of the great changes of China’s grassroots society and its internal mechanisms. When I started working on the police issues, Professor He gave plenty of valuable criticisms and suggestions, from which I benefited a lot. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Huihuang, Petition Against the Police, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0

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I would like to express thanks to all members of Central China Rural Study School (华中乡土派) for their care and encouragement, especially those who work and study in Guangzhou. Otherwise, I would not feel so fulfilled and delighted in study. I would like to express thanks to the Institute of Public Policy of South China University of Technology for offering me a good work and research platform. Professor Zheng Yongnian is very smart and he always works diligently. I admired his devotion and passion about academics very much. With his encouragement and help, I had a new cognition and a greater interest in academic study and policy research. In my opinion, Professor Mo Daoming was a legendary figure who made brilliant achievements in many fields. As to practical experience and way of doing things and dealing with people, he gave me very good instructions and suggestions. I would like to express thanks to Professor Zhang Feng for his trust and guidance and to IPP’s academic team and administrative team for their concerted efforts to build a better academic and policy research platform. I got a lot of help from you! To be honest, I would like to express gratitude to leaders who helped me most with arrangement of fieldwork and all policemen who I interviewed. Without your selfless help, I cannot finish my studies. I hope you could understand that I cannot mention your name for many reasons. I saw your hardships and helplessness from everyday investigation, repeated dispute resolution, terribly defeated stability maintenance of petition and leader’s groundless criticism. Maybe the only thing I can do is to tell good stories of Chinese police and to narrate your sufferings as accurately as possible. Finally, I would like to express thanks to my families, especially my wife Wu Qiuju, for their irreplaceable care so that I can carry out studies intently.

Index

B Bribery, 4, 9, 112, 168, 173, 177

115, 117–127, 129, 134–142, 144, 148–150, 152, 156–158, 160–163, 167–171, 173, 174, 177, 178, 181 Causal event, 19, 29–34, 38, 40, 41, 45, 48 Complaint, 57, 64, 69, 70, 72, 79, 87, 89, 92–97, 99, 103, 107, 129, 133–138, 140, 142, 144, 158, 159 Corruption, 9, 55–57, 60, 84, 85, 129, 149, 176 Cost, 2, 3, 17, 27, 51, 52, 56, 61, 74, 93, 96, 97, 100, 114, 144, 161–165, 168, 170, 181 Crime, 31–34, 38, 40, 45, 47, 50, 51, 60–62, 65, 70, 77, 83–85, 88, 91, 143, 153, 154

C Case, 3–6, 9, 10, 13, 17–32, 34–36, 38, 40, 42–45, 47, 49, 51–63, 65, 67–70, 72–75, 78, 79, 85–96, 99–103, 105–108, 113,

D Decision-making ability, 13, 168–174, 177–180 Dialectic, 153, 155, 158–160, 165, 181

A Ability, 13, 23, 61, 63, 94, 97, 104, 109, 112, 130, 141, 143, 144, 150, 154, 155, 158–160, 162, 165, 167, 168, 170, 172, 173, 176, 178–181 Abuse, 62, 63, 66, 77, 115, 175 Accident, 30–32, 45, 58, 85, 123, 137, 183 Alienation, 110, 125, 139, 173, 176–178 Appeal, 3, 4, 19–23, 25–28, 36–38, 42, 44, 69, 103, 121, 123, 125, 126, 150, 178

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 L. Huihuang, Petition Against the Police, IPP Studies in the Frontiers of China’s Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0268-0

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INDEX

Dilemma, 10, 11, 65, 102, 130, 143, 160, 164, 174, 176, 178–180, 183 Discipline, 10, 55–61, 63–71, 75, 76, 78, 79, 90, 91, 115, 141, 174, 176, 180, 181 Dispute, 8, 31–33, 40, 42, 51, 91, 93, 117, 119, 126, 147, 148, 157, 169, 172, 177, 184 E Excessive discipline, 66, 137, 138 F First petition, 34–41 Flaw, 2, 18, 53, 60, 61, 63, 95, 96 Force resources, 55 G Governance, 7, 11–13, 52, 66, 86, 102–104, 149, 152, 157, 168, 170, 171, 176, 181 Governance power, 11–13 Government, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 17, 32, 54, 64, 65, 80, 97, 102–105, 110, 112, 113, 115, 122, 123, 126–130, 139, 143, 148, 150–153, 155, 158–164, 167–170, 173, 181 Grassroots police, 55, 56, 61, 70, 74–77, 80, 81, 88, 89, 95, 96, 99, 101, 102, 105, 108, 109, 111–114, 120, 133, 134, 137–145, 157, 160, 168, 175–178 Group petition, 35, 42, 50–52, 123 H Handling, 2, 3, 9, 10, 19–21, 23, 26–28, 33, 38, 44, 52–54, 61,

62, 69, 70, 75, 79, 85, 92, 95, 100, 101, 105, 106, 113, 119, 120, 122, 123, 134, 135, 141, 156, 162, 170, 178 I Identification, 21, 61, 118, 119, 121, 130, 150, 168 Individual petition, 35, 50, 51 Injustice, 2, 93, 95, 103, 149, 161, 181 Interviewed unit, x Irrationalization, 112, 117, 130, 169 Irrational petition, 4, 5, 9, 12, 28, 47, 99, 101, 102, 109, 111–114, 117, 120–122, 125, 128, 130, 139, 149–160, 164, 168, 170, 172, 173, 178, 179, 181 J Judgment, 2, 9, 11, 13, 71, 105, 122, 148, 150, 161, 162, 168, 169, 171 Justice, 1, 2, 5–8, 94, 103, 120, 127, 128, 145, 149, 164, 165, 167, 169, 172, 180 L Law, 9, 10, 12, 27, 28, 51, 57, 64, 65, 70, 71, 78, 85–87, 89–92, 94, 96, 105, 122, 124, 139–141, 144, 147–149, 153–157, 160, 167, 173–175, 178 Law enforcement, 3, 9–11, 13, 18–22, 25, 26, 28, 36, 44, 52, 53, 55, 57, 60, 61, 63–65, 69–72, 74–76, 78–81, 85–87, 89–97, 101, 107, 133, 134, 142–144, 154, 168, 174–180 Leapfrog petition, 4, 7, 34, 35, 49, 112, 121, 150, 155, 164

INDEX

Legal involution, 174, 178 Legal modernization, 3, 147, 149 Legal violation, 31–33, 38, 40, 45, 47, 51

M Mediation, 106, 113, 118, 155, 158, 175 Misconduct, 55, 63, 65, 66, 70, 71, 75, 81, 83, 85, 91, 94, 108, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140–144 Modernization, 1, 14, 42, 51, 176, 180

N No-fault punishment, 89, 94, 96, 99, 109, 133, 136, 137, 140, 142–144 Nonfeasance, 21, 23, 26, 28, 29, 44, 46, 83, 85, 96, 100, 108, 134–137, 153, 158 Nonfeasance for fear of complaint, 94, 96, 133, 134, 136, 140, 143

O Order, 5, 7, 8, 10–12, 30, 45, 52, 55, 56, 58–60, 62, 67, 68, 71–73, 75, 76, 79, 80, 84–86, 88, 90, 95, 99, 103, 105, 109, 111, 122, 127, 128, 134, 135, 137, 138, 149–151, 153, 155, 161, 162, 168, 181 Organizational network, 75, 78

P Panopticism, 67, 78, 80 Participation, 148 People, 1, 2, 5–10, 18, 20, 27, 33, 34, 36, 45, 54, 55, 57–59, 62,

187

66, 71, 73, 74, 77, 81, 84, 87, 88, 90–92, 95–97, 100, 102, 103, 105, 109, 111, 112, 114, 119, 120, 122, 125, 126, 128–130, 144, 148–153, 157, 160, 163, 164, 169, 170, 172, 173, 184 Petition, 1–13, 17–20, 22, 25–27, 29–34, 36, 42, 44, 45, 49–54, 60, 61, 64, 66, 67, 69, 70, 72, 86, 91, 92, 94, 95, 97, 99–114, 117–130, 133, 134, 136–142, 144, 147–164, 167–174, 176, 177, 179–181, 184 Petition against the police, 7, 9, 11–14, 17, 30, 34, 40, 42, 49–53, 83, 95, 104, 112, 168, 174, 176–180, 183 Petition alienation, 147, 148, 174, 176 Petition cost, 35, 51, 112, 169, 170 Petitioner, 2–6, 8, 9, 13, 17–23, 26–28, 32, 36, 43, 44, 49, 52–54, 66, 69, 74, 95–97, 101–105, 107–115, 117, 120–130, 133, 134, 138–141, 150–157, 159–164, 169–171, 173, 177, 178, 181 Petition governance, 8, 13, 54, 73, 74, 97, 99, 106, 107, 110, 127, 148–155, 158–162, 164, 165, 168–174, 177–181 Petition quantity, 1, 106, 127, 172 Petition temptation, 99, 109, 112, 117, 120, 125, 128, 130, 133, 149, 153 Policeman, 4, 20, 28, 40, 47, 56, 60–62, 81, 87–90, 92, 106, 115, 118, 122, 123, 125, 126, 134, 138, 140, 141, 144, 145, 156, 157, 162

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INDEX

Police station, 9, 28, 32, 33, 50, 58, 70, 72, 73, 75–77, 79, 80, 87, 97, 100, 102, 112–115, 118, 119, 122, 124, 134, 139, 141, 142, 155–158, 175 Policing reform, 10, 65, 67, 73, 75, 80, 84, 86, 95, 97, 104, 106, 121 Policing supervision, 57, 65, 67–72, 74, 75, 78–81, 83, 86, 87, 90–92, 94, 95, 99, 133, 134, 139, 140, 142–145 Political principle, 161, 172, 181 Power, 1, 2, 6, 7, 11–13, 55–57, 61–69, 71, 72, 74–76, 78, 80, 81, 101, 103, 104, 109, 111, 113, 119, 121, 128, 129, 138, 142–145, 161, 162, 167–181 Power discipline, 55, 57, 60–62, 64–66, 68, 83, 137, 138, 143, 161, 162, 164, 165, 180 Principle, 2, 8, 54, 71, 79, 83, 96, 103, 113, 127, 133, 138–140, 142, 151, 155, 161, 170 Process, 3, 6, 12–14, 18, 19, 21, 23–26, 28, 32, 36, 38, 44, 45, 50, 52, 56, 60, 63, 68–72, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81, 86, 90, 91, 95, 99, 103, 106, 108–111, 113, 117, 119, 120, 125, 142, 148, 150, 153–155, 163, 168, 169, 172, 175, 176, 179–181 Profit-driven petition, 4, 9, 36, 113, 127, 173 Prohibition, 10, 57–59, 77, 87, 104 Public security, 3–5, 9–14, 18, 19, 21, 22, 28, 30, 32, 36, 44, 51–57, 59, 62–65, 67–81, 83, 85–93, 99–102, 104, 106–108, 110, 113–115, 118–124, 127, 134–139, 141, 142, 151–153,

155–157, 160, 175, 176, 178, 179 Punishment, 57, 59, 64, 68–70, 74, 86–90, 106, 136–138, 142, 164 R Rational petition, 3, 5, 101, 110, 117, 120–123, 125, 128, 130, 153, 155, 159, 160, 164, 169, 172, 173, 179, 181 Relief, 2, 3, 5–8, 52, 97, 102, 103, 109, 110, 112, 117, 128, 148–150, 160, 162–165, 167, 168, 170, 172, 177, 179–181 Repeat petition, 3, 17, 34–41, 49, 51–53, 107, 108, 124 Right, 2, 3, 5–7, 11, 12, 57, 71, 88, 92–95, 97, 102, 103, 105, 108, 111, 112, 117, 119, 120, 126–128, 130, 133, 137, 142, 144, 148–150, 153, 155, 160–165, 167–172, 174, 177, 179–181 Right cost, 161 Right safeguarding, 3, 8, 9, 11–13, 18, 54, 89–91, 96, 120, 125, 127, 128, 149, 163, 164, 168, 173, 179, 181 Rule of law, 1, 5, 6, 10, 11, 13, 18, 19, 21, 148, 149, 174, 178–180 Rural, 1, 7, 14, 17, 34, 40, 42–52, 127 S Self-denial, 130 Slack, viii, ix Social contradiction, 14, 18, 32, 36, 42, 50, 52, 53, 133, 153, 168, 172, 174, 179, 180 Social control, 73, 133, 143, 144, 174–179

INDEX

Social governance, 97, 139, 153, 168, 170, 180 Social harmony, 153 Standardization of law enforcement, 10, 12, 53, 65, 178 Subordinate unit, 76, 94, 99, 103–106, 108, 109, 128, 129, 142, 143, 154, 159, 161, 162, 169, 171, 176, 177 Superior unit, 7, 69, 72, 76, 77, 99, 103–105, 107–110, 112, 126, 128–130, 134, 137, 141–143, 145, 153, 154, 158, 159, 161–163, 168–171, 176, 177, 181 Supervise, 7, 25, 26, 28, 38, 44, 45, 52, 62, 64, 69, 71, 75, 76, 79, 80, 96, 97, 115, 120, 122, 144, 181 Supervision storm, 67, 68, 70, 86

189

U Underground complaint, 92–94, 96 Unprincipleness, 140 Unruly people, 2, 4, 125–128, 150, 160, 172, 173 Urban, 14, 17, 30, 34, 40, 42–50, 52, 127 Urbanization, 13, 14, 17, 18, 32, 33, 36, 42, 45, 50–53, 112

V Violation, 32, 56, 58–60, 64, 68–70, 78, 86, 169

Z Zero tolerance, 74, 83–89, 94–96, 99, 109, 133, 139, 140, 143–145, 178