User:Erc036/sandbox

Ming China
In ancient China, when minor judicial incidents such as robberies occur, the client reports to a police officer (a.k.a. constable) at the prefectural office. To catch a thief, a constable can arrest another thief by baiting him with a forged opportunity and use the thief's same-field knowledge to predict the one in question. The assisting thief would still be punished for robbery but since he assisted the officer his punishment would be lowered.

By Ming law, police officers have a strict time schedule to arrest the criminals. They usually have thirty days to arrest the issued criminals. If officers have not capture their assigned criminals after thirty days or assigned deadline, they would subject to physical punishments. Successfully arresting criminals earns police officers promotions. However, this method was often subject to abuse in order to quickly earn promotions.

Police officers were appointed by the head officials from the populations. These selected officers, however, were not recognized as part of the magistrates for they were merely runners.

Approximately one out of four court cases features corrupted officers who accepts bribes to ignore certain crimes, or sometimes even assisting the criminals. Officers focusing on building social network which may include criminals instead of making examples of preventing crimes.