China has fired nine county-level police chiefs after their departments failed to pass performance reviews for two consecutive years, a police official said on Tuesday.

Ke Liangdong, director of the Ministry of Public Security's legal affairs department said that in all 12 county-level police departments failed performance reviews.

The 12 county-level police departments are located in the provinces of Jilin, Hunan, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Hebei provinces. Nine chiefs of police have been sacked, and punishment for the other chiefs is still being considered, he said.

The number of police departments that have been determined not to meet required standards have dropped from 4.83 percent in 2002 to 2.81 percent in 2005. The annual evaluations first began in 2002, Ke said.

The evaluation process details the performance of police departments in several different areas. Evaluators look at how the local departments dealt with criminal and administrative cases, how they conducted internal supervision and if there were violations of law enforcement procedures.

From March to September, higher-level police departments will send 2,400 teams of inspectors to help the county level departments improve the quality of their work.

(Xinhua News Agency April 19, 2006)