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Chongqing creates fund to boost police morale

By Wang Huazhong,Ma Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-26 09:06

CHONGQING: With a police force ravaged by allegations of corruption and sheltering gangsters, the municipality's police chief sought to boost sagging morale among officers by creating a fund for the families of deceased officers.

As 50 fresh recruits took their oath of loyalty, Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun led his subordinates in paying tribute to police martyrs, and said a fund to compensate policemen who are ill or who die in future missions would be established this year.

Though the size of the fund was not disclosed, "the event boosted the confidence of demoralized police," said Professor Fang Ling, head of the Laws Research Center of the Chongqing Academy of Social Science.

"It indicates authorities are determined to further the crackdown on gangs," Fang said.

Prosecutors are preparing to bring charges against more than 700 government officials.

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Among the massive tally, 558 officials were prosecuted for corruption and receiving bribes and 108 for dereliction of duty.

The prosecutions come amid the ongoing police crackdown on local organized gangs.

"Officials on the list, some of them policemen, may have received bribes for sheltering gangs," said Zhou Min, director of the publicity office of the municipality's procuratorate.

In the past two months, at least seven senior police, including the once high profile director of the Chongqing municipal bureau of judicial, Wen Qiang, have been detained for protecting gangs or being involved in gang business, according to the Chongqing Morning News.