Beijing to establish database on beggars on subways

An elderly woman leading another man beg for money on the Beijing subway, May 25, 2014.[Photo/CFP]

A database of beggars on the Beijing subways will be established by the local police, which they will share with subway staff to make it easier for future law enforcement, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Monday.

According to the report, beggars in the Beijing subway stations can easily earn about 5,000 yuan ($804.93) a month and little progress has been seen since the local authorities launched a campaign to crack down on illegal begging half month ago.

Li Haitao, Deputy Director of Beijing's Traffic Enforcement Unit, said that police officers with his unit have figured out some countermeasures to reduce the illegal begging, since most beggars are familiar faces.

For instance, his team members have established a WeChat group to share with other colleagues relevant information of the beggars, including the time and place to spot them.

"Even information sharing on such a small scale has already provided much convenience for the traffic enforcement unit to figure out regular working patterns of the beggars." Li said.

Meanwhile, the traffic police officers would only take pictures when the beggars fail to produce their ID cards, disability certificates, or they just refuse to cooperate, he added.

For the next step, Li said that the local traffic police will try to build a two-way information sharing system with subway staff to target beggars on the subways more strictly.Besides, a fare increase in earlier this month may also force some to try their luck elsewhere, with begging been banned in subway stations and on trains since May 1, with offenders facing fines of 50 yuan to 1,000 yuan.

The authorities have also started to charge people who stay inside stations for more than four hours.