Scandalous firms in the headlines

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-30 10:32

You see security guards almost everywhere: in communities, at supermarkets, in office buildings. But fewer people nowadays really think of security guards as protectors. More often than not, they believe - rightly or wrongly - that security guards are dangerous.

The lack of official supervision has made substandard security service companies almost rampant and the unqualified guards they recruit lack professional training, and have made headlines with their violence and crimes.

In November 2008, a security guard in Fengtai district was sentenced to 12 years in prison after stabbing an apartment owner. The company he worked for was later found to be operating without a legal permit and had never provided any training for employees.

In May 2008, a security guard for a restaurant also in Fengtai district killed a couple, including a pregnant woman, who served as cashiers for the restaurant, and then stole 600,000 yuan ($88,000) from them.

In October 2007, another security guard in Beijing killed two colleagues, dissected their bodies, and mailed them to six apartment owners in the local community, asking each for 800,000 yuan. After being arrested, the man said he did it out of revenge against the apartment owners who often scolded him.

These horrible events have pointed to the lack of proper training and adequate supervision among the city's security guards, estimated to be numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

Official statistics showed from 2002 to March 2007, Beijing's No 1 Intermediate People's Court heard 25 cases involving serious crimes committed by security guards. Among the 38 convicted criminals, four were given death sentences, five received life imprisonment, and the remaining 29 were sentenced to jail.

From April 2006 to May 2007, the People's Court in Chaoyang district alone presided over 24 cases involving security guards, and penalized 30 people.

METRO