Police deaths blamed on overwork

China Daily, April 5, 2011

At 10 pm, Jan 29, 2010, Shen went back to his dormitory after a day spent patrolling. His colleague, just finishing a discussion about a work schedule for the next day, found Shen at 11:40 pm lying on the bed, motionless.

First aid was given to Shen, but his life was not saved. Doctors later announced the sudden death had been the result of overwork.

A lack of police personnel has been a long-standing issue in China. Take Guangdong province, which, according to Nanfang City News, has 120,000 police officers serving a population of more than 100 million.

"There are 730 police officers in our district, including traffic officers, public security officers, criminal investigators, and officers in local police stations," said a policeman who works in a police substation in the province. "But we are in charge of nearly 400 square kilometers."

"We worked around the clock in the second half of 2010 to provide security for the Asian Games. When others enjoy holidays, we burn the midnight oil in police stations."

Dai Peng said one way to improve the situation would be to better allocate police resource and eliminate the discrepancies in duties between police personnel who stay in the office, who often enjoy leisure, and those on the front lines, who frequently are overburdened.