Preventing "unnatural deaths" of inmates and removing safety risks in detention houses are a priority for the police this year, the Ministry of Public Security said.

A series of custody deaths threatens the removal of police control over detention centers.

In a statement published on the ministry's website late on Thursday, chief police inspector Zhu Chunlin said law enforcement practices by police officers shall be further regulated to achieve "harmony between the police and the people".

He said letters and calls from the public would receive more attention. "Eliminating unnatural deaths of inmates during law enforcement and removing safety risks in detention houses are the major tasks this year," said Zhu, also Party secretary of the ministry's discipline inspection commission.

Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu's message, posted on the ministry's website on Friday, also urged police officers at all levels to "voluntarily receive the supervision from the public".

"Police should dare to, and be willing to, receive public supervision. They should learn how to work and live under the public eye," Meng said.

He asked police officers to be cautious with their daily behavior, avoid being greedy or having bad friends.

Twenty-four-year-old Li Qiaoming's death at the Jinning detention house in Yunnan province in Feb was the first such case to catch public attention. Li was later found to have been beaten to death by bullies at the detention house.

The incident triggered off more media reports on similar suspicious cases, including that of 19-year-old Xu Gengrong, who died on Mar 8, the seventh day of his detention in Shaanxi province.

This week two minors reportedly died over four days at a provincial juvenile reformatory in Hunan province, and 50-year-old Li Wenyan allegedly died in the middle of "a nightmare", according to a detention department head in Jiujiang of Jiangxi province.

Criminal justice experts demanded a radical reform to put detention houses in the hands of a "neutral" organization. The Public Security Ministry earlier this week promised a three-month detention house overhaul to look into possible problematic areas.

(China Daily April 4, 2009)