In the first half of this year China's police cracked 33,000 economic crimes which is 6.8 percent up over the same period of 2005.

 

The crimes involved 58.14 billion yuan (US$7.27 billion) of illicit money-up a hefty 89.5 percent. The information was released by Wu Heping, spokesman for the Ministry of Public Security, at a regular news conference held in Beijing Tuesday.

 

"Overall, China's public security situation remained stable in the first half of 2006 as the number of major criminal cases all went down," said Wu.

 

Wu provided a raft of statistics in support of his statements. For the January-June period of 2006 homicide cases were down 14.9 percent over the same period last year, rape dropped 6.3 percent, arson cases fell by 17.5 percent and investigations involving explosives were down 18.3 percent, he said.

 

In the same period the country witnessed 129,000 fires which resulted in the deaths of 871 people and injuries to 991 others causing 394 million yuan (US$49.25 million) of economic losses. All these figures were down on the previous period.

 

Prostitution cases were down 6.2 percent, gambling dropped by 51.9 percent and drug smuggling fell by 20 percent over the same period last year, Wu said.

 

Police investigated a total of 1.811 million property infringement cases - mainly burglary and robbery - which was a drop of 1.5 percent.

 

Overall, police filed 2.115 million criminal cases, down 1 percent, and solved 1.185 million of them which was a rise in detection of 3.7 percent.

 

Wu said China had witnessed a significant decrease in juvenile delinquency in the first six months of 2006 with the percentage of people under 25 among arrested criminal suspects dropping by 6.5 percent year-on-year.

 

Arrests of 18-25 year olds were down 4.5 percent and for those aged under 18 they'd fallen by 11.4 percent.

 

In recent years China has witnessed an upsurge in juvenile delinquency. In 2005 more than 70 percent of the country's robberies were committed by youngsters.

 

In a bid to halt the growing delinquency China launched a nationwide campaign in 2004 called "For Tomorrow" aiming to increase law awareness among young people and encourage them to be disciplined and law-abiding. In July 2006 the government issued regulations concerning the environment around primary and middle schools urging that illegal internet bars and karaoke venues near schools be closed down.

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2006)