China imposes stricter controls on firearms and knives: experts
The homicide rate in China in 2014 equals that of Switzerland, a Chinese top security official announced on Wednesday.
The rate stayed at 0.7 per 100,000 residents in 2014 in China, Meng Jianzhu, head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, was quoted by Southern Metropolis Daily as saying
There has been a consistent fall in violent crimes such as rape, abduction, murder and arson, he said.
According to statistics provided by the Ministry of Public Security, the number of violent crime cases dropped 15.6 percent in the first quarter of 2015 year-on-year.
In 2013, China's homicide rate stood at 0.8 per 100,000 people, the People's Daily reported.
Meng, who was speaking during a national working conference on establishing crime prevention and control systems held in Dalian, said the public situation in China was satisfactory overall, given the large country with a huge population and uneven development.
Based on the International Homicide Statistics 2015 released by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the homicide rates in Germany and Switzerland remained 0.7 per 100,000 people in 2013 - the latest figure in the homicide statistics, while that in the US was 3.8 per 100,000 people. Honduras witnessed the worst homicide rate - 84.3 per 100,000 residents.
"China has been investing a lot in public security prevention and maintenance of social stability," Chen Zhonglin, dean of the Law School at Chongqing University, told the Global Times.
"Unlike certain major nations such as the U.S., China has a much stricter control over firearms and knives, which has reduced the possibilities of violent crimes to a great extent," Chen said.
Meng also pointed out that regulations on public security administration need improving due to a lack of "consciousness of risks" and "unclear accountabilities."
Citing commercial fraud, online pyramid schemes and invasion of privacy, Meng said that many crimes nowadays are being committed over the Internet. He urged the public security departments to set up "online police stations" and to step up efforts to prevent the spread of rumors, firearm-trafficking and drug-trafficking online.
China launched a crackdown on rumors spreading online in recent years as they have impaired the credibility of online media, disrupted normal communication order, and aroused great aversion among the public. In August, the Cyberspace Administration of China accused 50 websites of creating panic by publishing unverified information or letting users spread groundless rumors, including "the blasts killed at least 1,000 people," "shopping malls in Tianjin got looted" and "leadership change in Tianjin government."
The police also launched a campaign starting in April to crack down on online drug crimes, and have since solved 14,878 online drug-related violations and captured 32,871 suspects, according to the Ministry of Public Security.
Meng called for strengthened supervision over illegal trading on the Internet and combating forged and fake goods.
