As part of increased security measures enacted in response to a series of recent violent attacks in China, police officers in some parts of the country have been armed. Unsurprisingly, this new policy has led to an uptick in police shootings, which in turn has given rise to public safety concerns. The China Law Translate Community Translation Project summarizes and critiques a recent Chinese report on public opinion and police gun use. From CLT’s introduction:
The journal ‘Public Opinion on Politics and Law’ (《政法舆情》) has recently released a report considering public opinion about the new policy and recent incidents of police gun use. Some of this data was released publicly online and is summarized and commented on here with its charts reproduced and translated. The Chinese review can be found here, with links to the full article, which I have not yet seen.
I began writing this summary because I saw what looked like concrete and relevant data, and there is a bit of that, but what stands out more is the report’s lack of focus and methodology—a nod to media research which formally resembles meaningful insight, but has little substance behind it. I continued writing the summary both to share what could be learned in it, but also to point out some of the articles failures along the way. […] [Source]
Click through for China Law Translate’s entire summary of the Chinese report. Also see a previous post from China Law Translate on the vague regulations for police gun use and Chinese media’s coverage of police shootings in late May, 2014. Amid the nationwide crackdown on violence that has armed some police officers for the first time in the PRC’s history, government authorities have instructed all media to follow official wire copy on violence and police shootings.
