Ways to Turn to the Police, Lawyers and Private Detectives

In China, there is a difference in seeking help from the police, lawyers, and private detectives.

When Chinese citizens encounter difficulties and are unable to handle them, there are usually three options for seeking help. All three methods can help citizens, but the scope, nature, and form of help provided vary.

1. Turn to the police:

"If you have trouble, look for the police." has been a propaganda term used by Chinese police agencies and a true portrayal of the police image. "So resorting to the police is the preferred way for citizens when they are in trouble.

The help provided by the police is public relief, a free public welfare act, and it is authoritative and fair. However, the police are not a panacea, and the police have their own terms of reference. In fact, the police's assistance to citizens mainly includes emergency affairs, violations, crimes, and civil disputes. As for civil litigation agency services, legal affairs consulting services, civil litigation investigation and evidence collection, and investigations of cases that cannot be filed, they are usually not within the authority of the police.

2. Turn to a lawyer:

Lawyers are legal workers, and the forms of help for lawyers are legal aid and paid fee services. Lawyers are familiar with legal knowledge and are only responsible for legal affairs processes. The strongest strength of lawyers is always litigation agents. Investigation and evidence collection services for civil affairs and commercial affairs are often too hard and risky to be favored by lawyers.

3. Turn to the private detective:

The help of private detectives belongs to the category of private relief and is a paid service. Private detective services are mainly investigation and evidence collection services for civil and business affairs. The more frequent economic activities, the greater the market demand for the private investigation industry, and citizens' resort to private investigation services has become a habitual consumer behavior. It is entirely feasible and credible to lawfully entrust private investigative investigation and non-litigation matters to be legally disposed of. As for the evidence obtained by a private detective, it is only that the evidence collection process or method is not suspected of violating the law or violating personal privacy, and the court will naturally accept it according to law.

Private detectives originated in Europe and America. In 1992, the first private investigation agency appeared in mainland China. In 2003, the state allowed the registration of private detective trademarks. The market demand for private detective investigation services is growing. Private detective agencies are mainly engaged in tracing services, property investigation and forensics, national information investigations, online fraud prevention, marriage investigations, child behavior monitoring, debt recovery, whereabouts investigations, but also credit investigations, intellectual property investigations, and anti-counterfeiting rights protection, economic intelligence Investigation and other work. In 2006, there were about 3,700 private detective agencies in China, with more than 200,000 employees. Basically, they conduct business investigations On the brink of law. The investigators are uneven, and Some even use private detectives to commit illegal activities. Therefore, in 2008, China promulgated the "Citizens' Personal Information Protection Law" a series blow to the private detective industry, so that the private detective industry almost disappeared.