No dignity in exposing beggars

Xujiahui subway police recently reported on its microblog that officers had successfully dealt with 30 cases of aggressive begging and illegal distribution of flyers.

I naturally applaud all efforts by the police to maintain order in public spaces, but I was less impressed with another initiative launched by the same subway police a couple of weeks ago.

On August 14, the police posted an online list of the three people who had been apprehended more times for begging than any other offenders on the metro system since 2008.

Top of the list is a 20-something man, surnamed He, from Liaoning Province who has been hauled in to the cop shop an incredible 309 times during the last four years. Runner-up is an 88-year-old woman, surnamed Chen, from Anhui Province, who's been pulled in 303 times over the same period. And in Bronze position is another young man from Gansu Province, surnamed Bao, with 241 arrests.

A reporter for the Xinmin Evening News, however, decided to do a bit of investigative reporting into these three "criminals." And the reporter uncovered that He is severely disabled and can barely walk; Chen has a long history of gambling addiction related to playing mahjong; and Bao's wife is undergoing treatment for leukemia.

If the intention of the police was to "name and shame" the metro system's worst begging offenders, it's a ploy that seems to have backfired spectacularly. If anyone has been shamed by this debacle, it is the police themselves.

Officers admit that none of the three people who appeared on the list have ever been accused of aggressive begging in which passengers were bullied or intimidated into giving them money.

The law stipulates that only people alleged to be aggressively begging should be detained for undermining public order. Taking this into account, I think it was wholly inappropriate for the police to post the names and personal information of these three people online.

In reaction to the post, thousands of netizens commented online. Some applauded the move saying that such beggars are a "plague" on ordinary commuters, while others criticized the list as "being disrespectful to the most vulnerable members of our society."

In a lame attempt to defend themselves against criticism, the police bizarrely pointed out to local media that many beggars "are not as poor as some people imagine." They cited one old man who it's said could earn 30 yuan ($4.73) in half an hour, and another example in which a foreigner once gave a beggar $100.

The police said that apprehended beggars are always given the option of being sent back to their hometown (fare paid), but that most refuse this offer and choose to stay in Shanghai.

If it wasn't already evident in the case of the top-three mentioned before, it is obvious that most people who beg are absolutely desperate and only do it as a last course of action. They are often unable to work themselves (as in the case of He), need large amounts of money for expenses such as medical bills (as in the case of Bao) or have mental health issues that have spiraled out of control (as in the case of Chen).

Begging causes a person to lose their self-respect and dignity. It does the reputation of the police no good when they choose to heap further humiliation and degradation on people at the very bottom of our society.

By Wang Yizhou