Female police officers prove their mettle on the job
In Shanghai, female officers still account for a small percentage of the police force, but they’re no less devoted to their work. To mark International Women’s Day, Shanghai Daily talked to three of them.
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Song Fangyuan, an officer at the Gaojing Police Station in Baoshan District, analyzes footage of surveillance cameras.
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Song explains a map she creates that indicates the tracking of a theft suspect.
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Song carries a casual bag when going plainclothes in catching suspects.
Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE
Fulfilling a dream
Song Fangyuan, an officer at the Gaojing Police Station in Baoshan District, said she wanted to be a crime fighter since she was a child and admired Sergeant Dee Dee McCall in the 1980s American TV series “Hunter.”
For the past eight years, Song, 34, has been living her dream.
As a policewoman, she has often been assigned to cases of street theft, where perpetrators are often tracked down through surveillance cameras.
“We can spot them in the camera footage, but it takes a lot more effort to connect the dots and eventually find them,” Song said. “Over the years, I keep remembering what one veteran officer told me: Keep searching and you will find.”
In one case last year, about 10 motorcycles and e-bikes were stolen in the precinct’s vicinity.
“It can take us 30 minutes to an hour to map out what a suspect covers in five minutes,” Song said. “It’s a race against the criminals.”
Song and her colleagues tracked down one of the suspects in a village 10 days after working on the case. On the last day, they spent 14 hours going through surveillance-camera footage.
“Working as a team enables us to keep going when any of us starts to think it’s hopeless,” she said.
Song often goes plainclothes to catch suspects. Sometimes a team of a female and male officer works best because they can easily pretend to be lovers if a suspect walks past them, she said.
Song said she is a strong believer in prisoner rehabilitation.
“Crime victims who lost money or other possessions are often eager to know if their stolen goods can be recovered, but unfortunately that is not usually the case,” she said. “So if we reduce crime, we also reduce people’s losses.”
She once helped a 60-year-old man, who was involved in four theft cases, find a job in a neighboring city. But the man slipped into recidivism again.
“I told him that I would help him only once, and I stuck to my words,” she sighed.
Song has a 4-year-old daughter and tries to balance her work and private life.
“I have to give my child the best I can,” she said. “I prepare breakfast for her every morning and spend evenings with her as long as there are no cases pending.”
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Wang Rong, an interrogation officer of the Lujiazui Public Security Department, works in her office.
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Wang analyzes a case to her colleagues.
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Wang reviews a case in her office.
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Chasing answers
Wang Rong, 46, is one of three female officers on the interrogation team of the Lujiazui Public Security Department in the Pudong New Area, which has about a dozen members.
Her main job is to interview suspects and, hopefully, get the confessions that make prosecutions more ironclad. Before that happens, she has to talk to the people who report cases.
The interrogators are also involved in the collection and processing of evidence.
Wang was enrolled in the local police college in 1993, where she specialized in interrogation. Her class had a higher percentage of female students than other branches of police science.
When she started out, she was told that the job mainly involved paperwork and that the suspects would be easy to handle because they were ‘tigers trapped in a cave.’ But it didn’t turn out that way.
“The interrogation psychology we learned as students was just theoretical, and we had to learn by doing,” Wang said.
Back in the 1990s, suspects tended to confess pretty readily when caught, but they are harder nuts to crack nowadays, according to Wang.
“Male suspects often underestimate female interrogation officers at the start, but we pick up important messages through chatting with them and then gradually getting tough with them,” she said. “It’s a psychological tug-of-war.”
Wang said her approach is to let the suspects talk and assure them that their “righteous” claims will be investigated.
“I challenge them on illogical claims until they reach their wit’s end,” she said. “It helps empathize with them when necessary and show a certain amount of understanding.”
The interrogators also carefully observe body language of suspects — a technique made harder when they sit at a distance in another room or behind a thick screen because of coronavirus safeguards, Wang said.
Female interrogators often handle sexual assault cases where victims are underage girls. Wang said she often interviews such victims after work hours to give them a greater sense of privacy.
Handling up to 20 cases at a time, Wang has a busy schedule and often finds it hard to switch gears when at home.
“My husband tells me to change jobs when I come home very tired,” she said. “But I can’t think of any other job I would like.”
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Li Lin, general commander of the Command Center of Shanghai Public Security Bureau, works in the center.
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Li works in the Command Center of Shanghai Public Security Bureau.
Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE
Taking command
Li Lin, 46, is the first and only female commander at the Shanghai Public Security Bureau’s 110 call center.
“This work needs me to be at full energy at all times, even on the night shift from 5pm to 8am,” said the native of Henan Province.
“Gender is not one of the standards to judge whether I am a good policewoman or not,” she said. “If I made mistakes, my superiors can’t hold me accountable just because I am a woman.”
When Li was majoring in computer science at Tongji University, she found her interest shifting to police work and decided to make that her career in her senior year in 1999.
“Pursuing suspects is cool,” she said. “It is an exciting way to help society.”
After working at the call center for 14 years, she took command of it in 2019.
As leader, she is responsible for dispatching appropriate police forces to respond to calls for help.
Recently, a man held a woman hostage with a knife in Changning District. After listening repeatedly to a record of the call from the woman’s son, Li suspected the motive for the crime was money and the man didn’t really want to hurt the woman.
She alerted SWAT team members to remain concealed unless the life of the hostage suddenly was endangered, and told them to hold fire barring a deterioration of the situation.
“All lives deserve saving, including those of victims and suspects,” she said.
The hostage was eventually released uninjured and the man apprehended.
When people ring the call center seeking help on matters not within police jurisdiction, she diverts them to proper authorities.
“People always call the police when they feel helpless because they trust us,” she said. “But to be honest, we are not superhumans. We need to connect them with proper help.”
Because of her excellent work, Li will be honored by the Ministry of Public Security on International Women’s Day.