I have a couple of issues with the paper highlighted today.
Viola Rothschild at the Duke University, Department of Political Science and her collaborator Hong Shen Zhu at the University of Pennsylvania, Center for Study of Contemporary China lead off by describing China as an ‘autocracy‘, which it isn’t, exactly. Second, they go on to describe violence, incompetence and malfeasance as being “..—issues endemic to local policing in many autocratic states.” which I also think is a bit of a reach. Problems with misbehaving cops is not the exclusive purview of centralized political administrations [BLM, and many etceteras, anyone?].
Having noted the above, the work still has considerable merit and it’s findings have wider application than just China, the main one being ‘community policing’ comes with a series of downsides.
In the paper the authors note the main ones as follows:
- Proximity to a police station doesn’t make citizens feel safer.
- In fact, the perception of general safety is lowered when a police station appears.
- People living nearer police stations have lower trust in community political institutions.
- They also tend to participate less in neighborhood political affairs even if there are open and legitimate channels to do so.
- If people don’t feel they can report grievances freely administrative high-ups may be getting an incorrect reading on grass-roots issues.
- Despite a fraying of local trust the research finds no effect on the trust in central government.
The ‘why?’ of all the above are in the paper which you can read in full by following this link Never Meet Your Heroes.
Not the scope of this paper I know but I’d have welcomed an aside on whether or not the overall crime rate had been reduced in this process?
Happy Sunday.