Policemen patrol in front of the Guangzhou railway station in the capital of Guangdong province.
About 400 special police and plainclothes officers have been dispatched to Guangzhou's Baiyun district in a bid to crack down on robbery, organized crime, burglary and prostitution in the area, a public security official said this week.
Currently, police mostly patrol the district's downtown areas, while there is less monitoring of side streets and lanes, a police officer from the Guangzhou municipal bureau of public security said on Monday.
With the extra officers, authorities will now be able to respond more quickly to crimes committed in the district, the officer, who declined to be named, said.
Sandwiched between downtown and the suburbs, Baiyun has traditionally been among the provincial capital's most crime-plagued areas.
It is home to more than 1 million residents, about 22 percent of the city's total, and last year, accounted for 23 percent of the city's robberies, the officer said.