Targets encouraged torture
Print Edition
Police in central China’s Henan Province have scrapped a system that ranked units on the number of cases solved, as it was thought this put pressure on officers to come up with results through improper methods such as interrogation by torture, a local police officer said yesterday.
There will be no ranking among local police regarding the numbers of solved cases, or prosecuted suspects, according to a document issued by the Public Security Department of Henan to improve criminal law enforcement work.
Public feedback on the new appraisal system will prompt police to work hard to handle cases, said Hua Liebing, a senior officer of the department.
Simultaneous recording and filming will be carried out in interrogation of all criminal cases, added the document.
The moves will help ensure police do not interrogate suspects using torture or handle cases unjustly or falsely under pressure from pre-set targets on solved cases and time limits to crack cases, said Hua.
In 2004, Henan began to include the case solution rate as one of the means of examining police performance, as the province stressed that cases involving deaths must be solved.
Following the ranking introduction, the rate of cracked cases involving deaths in Henan jumped from 60 percent before 2004 to 96 percent in 2007.
But it also led to wrongful convictions. Zhao Zuohai, a Henan farmer, was released in 2010 after serving 11 years in jail for wrongly convicted homicide. The alleged victim turned up alive. Zhao said police tortured him into confessing.
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