Chongqing police restore township stations

Local police in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality restored six police stations at the township level, one year after the municipality closed a large number of police stations to strengthen the landmark police patrol platforms.

The public security bureau in Rongchang county in Chongqing restored six police stations that were closed one year ago on May 18, according to a statement on Rongchang county's official website.

"To restore the police stations is to conform to the needs of the times and appeal to the needs of the public," Fan Xingyu, the police chief of Rongchang county, said in the statement.

Some of the six stations are in remote areas and will provide convenience to the local people, the statement said.

When contacted by China Daily, the police bureau in Rongchang said it had no further comment regarding the change, saying it was only a normal work adjustment.

The six stations were closed in February 2011, along with another 187 stations in the municipality, reducing the total from 803 to 610. More than 1,000 police officers spared from the closures were added to police patrol platforms.

At the time, a spokesman for the Chongqing police was quoted by Chongqing Daily as saying that the closures was intended to tackle the overlapping of functions of the stations with the patrol platforms.

The spokesman also said that the work mode of police stations in Chongqing no longer fits into the needs due to economic development and urbanization.

The police patrol platform, along with a traffic patrol police force, were "unique inventions" by the Chongqing police when they were created in February 2010.

They are distributed widely in urban areas, from bustling shopping areas to old and dilapidated residential districts.

Meanwhile, the police at the patrol platforms also incorporated the role of traffic police and conducted routine patrols.

The city had 500 police patrol platforms by the end of 2011 with 14,000 traffic patrol police officers stationed at the platforms, Yuan Qinhua, a senior official with the Chongqing politics and law commission, said at a news conference last year.

The traffic patrol police officers, with their uniquely designed uniforms and badges, conducted patrols 24 hours a day and offered help to residents when needed.

At a work conference on April 25, the municipal police said it will refine the work mechanism of the traffic patrol police, China News Service reported.

He Ting, who replaced Wang Lijun as the municipality's deputy mayor and police chief in March, attended the work conference.

The conference also stressed the need to develop police stations at the community level and improve the treatment of police officers.