Will Clem and Lilian Zhang in Shanghai 21 October 2009
No body searches, no insults and no beating up of shoplifting suspects and perceived trouble-makers.
That, in a nutshell, is what new regulations issued by the State Council to curb growing violence by security guards at stores and entertainment locations stipulate, state media reported yesterday. They will go into force on January 1.
Premier Wen Jiabao had previously signed off on the sweeping new rules to clamp down on abuses of power by “shop cops” and doormen, the reports said, without specifying when the document had been finalised.
They follow a string of incidents nationwide involving security guards using excessive force.
The rules set entry requirements for the job and stipulate that guards must have a minimum of 30 days’ training. Guards must be at least 18 years old, healthy and of “good character”. Applicants will be ruled out if they have been in drug rehabilitation, have committed serious crimes or have had their security guard licences revoked more than once in the past three years.
The regulations also forbid companies in the entertainment sector from hiring their own security staff. Instead they will be required to go through a firm that has been sanctioned by their local government.
But most significantly, the rules ban a number of practices that are currently widespread, including beating up suspects, body searches, detaining individuals and confiscating property or identity documents.
The measures are a major step to control such guards, who are increasingly overzealous.
In the most recent case, a woman and her two daughters were beaten up by four security guards for begging outside a shopping mall in Beijing.
The woman said she was trying to raise money for her two-year-old daughter’s treatment for abdominal cancer. Witnesses said the guards dragged her into the road, slapped her and punched her in the stomach.
The woman was sent to hospital to have her injuries assessed, and a compensation deal is still under negotiation. But her case is far from the most shocking recent example of the violent lengths to which security guards have been prepared to go to impose their authority.
In August, six guards in Chengdu, Sichuan, were sentenced to three to five years in jail for causing “intentional injury”. They had beaten a 13-year-old boy to death in January after they caught him trying to steal a manhole cover.
In the same month, three security guards from a Chongqing entertainment venue went on trial for beating a drink-driver to death in a car parking dispute in April.
In September last year, five security guards from a Beijing market were sentenced to seven to 12 years in jail and ordered to pay 150,000 yuan (HK$170,500) in compensation for killing a man four years ago.
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New rules to rein in overzealous guards
Will Clem and Lilian Zhang in Shanghai
21 October 2009
No body searches, no insults and no beating up of shoplifting suspects and perceived trouble-makers.
That, in a nutshell, is what new regulations issued by the State Council to curb growing violence by security guards at stores and entertainment locations stipulate, state media reported yesterday. They will go into force on January 1.
Premier Wen Jiabao had previously signed off on the sweeping new rules to clamp down on abuses of power by “shop cops” and doormen, the reports said, without specifying when the document had been finalised.
They follow a string of incidents nationwide involving security guards using excessive force.
The rules set entry requirements for the job and stipulate that guards must have a minimum of 30 days’ training. Guards must be at least 18 years old, healthy and of “good character”. Applicants will be ruled out if they have been in drug rehabilitation, have committed serious crimes or have had their security guard licences revoked more than once in the past three years.
The regulations also forbid companies in the entertainment sector from hiring their own security staff. Instead they will be required to go through a firm that has been sanctioned by their local government.
But most significantly, the rules ban a number of practices that are currently widespread, including beating up suspects, body searches, detaining individuals and confiscating property or identity documents.
The measures are a major step to control such guards, who are increasingly overzealous.
In the most recent case, a woman and her two daughters were beaten up by four security guards for begging outside a shopping mall in Beijing.
The woman said she was trying to raise money for her two-year-old daughter’s treatment for abdominal cancer. Witnesses said the guards dragged her into the road, slapped her and punched her in the stomach.
The woman was sent to hospital to have her injuries assessed, and a compensation deal is still under negotiation. But her case is far from the most shocking recent example of the violent lengths to which security guards have been prepared to go to impose their authority.
In August, six guards in Chengdu, Sichuan, were sentenced to three to five years in jail for causing “intentional injury”. They had beaten a 13-year-old boy to death in January after they caught him trying to steal a manhole cover.
In the same month, three security guards from a Chongqing entertainment venue went on trial for beating a drink-driver to death in a car parking dispute in April.
In September last year, five security guards from a Beijing market were sentenced to seven to 12 years in jail and ordered to pay 150,000 yuan (HK$170,500) in compensation for killing a man four years ago.
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