Study On The Volunteer Police In The Period Of The Nanjing National Government

The volunteer police is the umbrella term for the duty police and the voluntary police during the period of Nanjing National Government.It was not a formal type of police at that time,but a kind of public organization formed by the people to assist the police in carrying out various police activities under the organization and leadership of the police departments.During the First World War,the volunteer police appeared in Europe,America and other countries,while those in China appeared later.During the period of the Northern Warlords Government,the volunteer police first appeared.In 1922,Zhao Dianying,the governor of Lishui County,Jiangsu Province and the director of the county police station,submitted a proposal to transfer duty police into official police.In 1924,the Guangzhou Police Bureau rolled out a proposal to establish an official squad of duty police.As the proposer was in a low position plus frequent social unrest,the duty police squad failed to be established.When Nanjing National Government was in power,in order to offer official police more intelligence,in 1932,the first duty police was established in Taiyuan,Shanxi,and in 1934,the voluntary police was officially established in Hangzhou,Zhejiang.After the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1937,in order to mobilize people to participate in the war and maintain social order during the war,the National Government planned and deployed vigilanterelated matters at the central level,and under the unified leadership of the National Government,the volunteer police were widely deployed throughout the country.After the collapse of the Nationalist government,the volunteer police in the Chinese mainland were also withdrawn.The internal management of the volunteer police involved many aspects during the period of Nanjing Nationalist government,such as organizational structure,personnel management,and funding management.However,owing to the fact that the Nationalist government did not pay enough attention to the volunteer police,there was no specific law that were put in place.Because of this,vigilantes did not have the power to perform duties alone in actual work,but merely assist the police in various tasks.Due to the poor enforcement of decrees and the chaos in internal management of the National Government,the organization and training of the volunteer police in various places failed to achieve the ultimate unity in the end.Instead,local governments organized and trained them according to their own needs.In the actual work,there were also lax discipline and oppression to people,etc.Nonetheless,as a product of the Kuomintang’s social mobilization,under the circumstance of insufficient police force,the volunteer police upheld the local security order,enhance part of the people’s ability,and played a certain role in maintaining the stability of social order during wartime.