Different Types of Police in China

[laohu489]

Just been wondering for the past couple of days what the difference between the different types of police are. I made a list of the different types that I could think of / have seen. Can anyone confirm if my guesses are right or even close? Any other info you have would be interesting to know.

警察 – criminal police, I guess they are something like detectives in the US police system.

公安 – civil police, public security, like patrol men as above.

城管 – all I know is that these are the guys who shoo away street vendors and items that have recently been cracked down on by the gov’t.

交警 – traffic police, for routine traffic stops? But I see 公安 wave people off the side of the road, is this only for civil (no sticker type) violations? I think these are more just for speeders and pursuits when necessary.

巡警 – patrol police, how is this different from above? I think these are for showing presence.

法警 – bailiffs? Responsible for transporting criminals between prisons and courts?

司法 – judicial police? Not sure if this is a police type or not, but I see police-type cars with this painted on the side.

[gougou]

Without knowing much about the differences, I still know 特警 (something like special forces?) and 武警 (military police?).

[studentyoung]

警察 – criminal police, I guess they are something like detectives in the US police system.

警察 is a collective, which includes 武警 and 公安 in China.

武警 are ranked the same as military rank, like General将, Colonel校, Captain尉, Sergeant士官, Private兵. They are NOT polices, but soldiers. They’re responsible for the security or defense in fields like forest, hydropower station facility, transportation, gold, fire fight, frontier and so on.

公安 – civil police, public security, like patrol men as above.

公安 basically works in fields like social security, household register, criminal investigation, public transport. They are in civil servant system (属公务员体系). They are ranked as Commissioner警监, Supervisor警督, Superintendent警司, Officer警员.

城管 – all I know is that these are the guys who shoo away street vendors and items that have recently been cracked down on by the gov’t.

城管 is also in civil servant system. They are responsible for things below in a city, i.e. sanitary conditions, city planning management, green land or roadside gardening, environmental protection, building site management, etc.

交警 – traffic police, for routine traffic stops? But I see 公安 wave people off the side of the road, is this only for civil (no sticker type) violations? I think these are more just for speeders and pursuits when necessary.

Traffic police usually work indoors, because they just need to watch the screens in front of them. All the conditions on the road are sent to their computers by numerous security cameras.

巡警 – patrol police, how is this different from above? I think these are for showing presence

Patrol police is part of 公安. They usually appear on crowded business areas to guard the social security.

法警 – bailiffs? Responsible for transporting criminals between prisons and courts?

法警's main responsibilities are to prevent, restraint, punish any activities that might hinder trial procedure, and to help trial procedure work smoothly.

司法 – judicial police? Not sure if this is a police type or not, but I see police-type cars with this painted on the side.

司法 is justice.

Cheers!

Edited February 13, 2009 at 08:15 AM by studentyoung

[randall_flagg]

Thank you, student young! That was very helpful.

However, I still don't understand this:

司法 is justice.

What do they do?

[liuzhou]

司法 is justice.

What do they do?

Anything they want to.

[studentyoung]

However, I still don't understand this:

Quote:

司法 is justice.

What do they do?

Ah, I see. 司法部门 is judicial department. It manages its subunits like law court, procuratorate, public security, prison, and lawyer group, etc.

Quote:

司法 is justice.

What do they do?

Anything they want to.

Under the law, right?

Cheers!

[mr.demoman]

hehe, to be honest, even I, a chinese, can not tell all these names from each other very clearly. and I think you got most of them right, laohu

警察 is police. it stands for all kinds of police, no matter criminal police, traffic police or else, they are all called police.

criminal police is called 刑警. somebody is murdered, bank robbery, drug smuggling or else.

城管 is not police at all, they do some assistant work to the police.

[laohu489]

Thanks for the responses, I've been asking a lot people this question recently before and after posting on this forum. I am sure most people don't know, including Chinese.

I'm not so sure however about the meaning of this:

法警 ... to prevent, restraint, punish any activities that might hinder trial procedure ...

Also, I saw another type of police. The car was much nicer than usual (prolly a VW Passat) and had "特警 RP" painted on the side. Any info on this?

[roddy]

特警 are equivalent to SWAT, I think. This might be enlightening. Or perhaps even more confusing, apparently you've got two 特警‘s, a 武警特警 - so the Armed Police Special Police, and the 公安特警 Public Security Special Police.

[gato]

I saw another type of police. The car was much nicer than usual (prolly a VW Passat) and had "特警 RP" painted on the side. Any info on this?

特警 RP stands for "Riot Police."

http://baike.baidu.com/view/47123.htm#3

RP”就是”RIOTPOLICE”的缩写,意味”防暴警察”=特警

[roddy]

Ah, that's interesting. I guess they couldn't write it in Chinese in case people got ideas . . .

[mr.demoman]

特＝special, 特＋警＝special police force.

I think they deal with terrorism, explosive, assasinating and so on.

武警, military police, i guess they probably only offer firepower support when needed.

上海特警英语是SPD = special police department 这个英语缩写在上海特警的队徽上有的

the special force police in shanghai all have SPD on their insignia.

车子上RP = riot police （防暴警察）

the RP on the car probably stands for roit police.

[randall_flagg]

RP does sound flashy!

[greenarcher]

Why are there 2 terms used for the local Police force? I thought Jing Cha was only used in Hong Kong and Taiwan but when I saw the Xinjiang incident, local police in that area are called Jing Cha. During my visit to Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen, they were labelled as Gong An.

[leeyah]

公安 is like Public security Dpt., covering public services (eg.issuing visas and permits for foreigners) & supervising social order (eg. minor crimes like petty thefts, etc)

警察 sounds more like Law Enforcement & investigation units, dealing with crimes; armed police units & you'd better not have anything to do with them, Chinese or foreigner alike

[gougou]

Merged with the answer.

[greenarcher]

Thanks for the clarification. I thought I was the only 1 confused with the naming conventions. I believe people in China have enough fear of its government that's why Gong An officers are, AFAIK, unarmed.

[muyongshi]

So what are the guys in the 国安局 called? 特务?