Several provinces have revamped the ways they evaluate the performance of local police departments, abolishing some criteria that have reportedly caused miscarriages of justice, such as the rate of successful cases.

The move has been hailed by experts as an important step in preventing wrongful convictions, as these rates - which are defined as when police have obtained sufficient evidence and caught the suspect - often led to police using illegal means to solve cases and please superior departments.

Central China's Henan Province and East China's Jiangxi Province both announced on November 4 that they would cease using the rates of success and statistics related to criminal detention and other unsound indicators used to evaluate police officers, following a similar move by Zhejiang Province in July this year.

According to the Henan Provincial Department of Public Security, public security bodies at different levels should not evaluate and rank police officers by their success rates and other unsound indicators, and should not publicize these rankings of officers. These were among 10 measures issued.

The measures also said that if wrongful charges are found, public security bodies will be given a fail grade on their assessments.

"Many places have recently released regulations to eliminate outdated indicators, which have brought more benefits than harm," Mao Lixin, a lawyer with the Shangquan Law Firm, told the Global Times.

Mao said that those means of assessment had caused a number of problems, such as putting pressure on police officers which resulted in them using illegal methods such as fabricating fake criminal cases, using torture to extract false confessions, or intentionally refusing to file non-criminal cases to maintain a successful rate of convictions.

China's top judiciary authorities issued guidelines on preventing false charges in August, which say that the procuratorial, judicial and public security bodies should not excessively pursue high conviction or criminal detention rates, and that judges, prosecutors and police officers should be responsible for their wrongdoings throughout their entire lifetimes.

While reflecting on two recent cases involving false charges in Zhejiang that have been corrected, Liu Liwei, the Zhejiang police chief, said in July that the province will abolish using success rates as a means of assessment, and that more energy should be spent on improving police officers' skills, Xinhua reported.

Zhang Gaoping and Zhang Hui, an uncle and a nephew from Zhejiang, were cleared of all charges in March this year after serving nearly 10 years in prison.

They were convicted of rape and murder in 2004 after giving a ride to a girl who was later found dead.

The two plan to sue the local prosecutor's office after learning that none of the police officers or prosecutors would be punished for the wrongful convictions.

However, it remains to be seen whether the abolishment of the indicators will really be put into effect before the end of this year when the evaluation process begins, a local police officer in Quzhou, Zhejiang, who asked not to be identified, told the Global Times on Wednesday, adding that they have not received a hard-copy of the regulations.

Mao said that the effect of abolishing these forms of assessment will depend largely on implementation.

Mao also pointed out that there were risks associated with issuing severe punishments to police officers based on wrongful charges, which would make them hesitant to report such cases.

Though many Net users praised the initiatives, some expressed concern that police officers will lose their incentive to work hard, without measurable performance indicators.

But Mao said these concerns were unjustified, as in recent years, the measurement of police performance had been impractical anyway, and that a more comprehensive and scientific system was needed.

The Supreme People's Court will release detailed rules for establishing a system for preventing wrongful convictions after the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee, which concluded on Tuesday, the Nandu Daily reported earlier this month.