Public security bureaus develop prevention system

China's public security departments have accelerated the development of a prevention and control system for public security risks over the past decade, effectively enhancing people's sense of security, officials with the Ministry of Public Security said on Tuesday.

Public security departments are striving to promote the construction of a safe China. The number of criminal cases filed started to drop in 2015, while the detection rate has kept rising.

According to statistics, the number of criminal cases filed in 2021 dropped 29.9 percent compared with 2015, and the number in the first eight months of this year dropped 13.1 percent compared with 2021.

"Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, public security departments have accelerated the development of a public security prevention and control system, and paid close attention to all kinds of prominent illegal activities," said Qiu Baoli, head of the ministry's public security administration bureau.

Eight major crimes — murder, assault, rape, robbery, arson, bombing, kidnapping and hijacking — have been on the decline for a long time. The total number of such cases from January to August of this year had a 7.8 percent year-on-year drop. People's sense of security rose from 87.5 percent in 2012 to 98.6 percent in 2021, according to Qiu.

The ministry deployed a 100-day nationwide operation to crack down on crimes and improve public security in late June, after the high-profile case of several men brutally beating four women at a barbecue restaurant in Tangshan of Hebei province on June 10 went viral.

Police have paid close attention to protecting the legitimate rights and interests of vulnerable groups such as women, minors, seniors and the disabled, he said.

Public security authorities at different levels have coordinated resources to promote the crackdown and rectification. During the period, the ministry supervised the handling of 309 major cases, among which 287 cases have been solved. Some suspended cases were resolved or had breakthroughs, he said.

During the period, they resolved about 640,000 criminal cases, detained 1.4 million suspects and rectified 7,440 places with security problems.

The result of a poll conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that 97.7 percent of participants were satisfied with the operation. Another survey carried out by a third-party institute on the effectiveness of the operation showed that about 90 percent of participants said they went out alone at night without worrying about their safety, said the ministry.

Problems such as fraud targeting seniors, telecom and online fraud and food and drug safety were prominent amid the operation, which severely endangered the interests of the public and the order of social security, said Jiang Guoli, deputy director of the ministry's criminal investigation bureau.

"We will focus on the goal of constantly enhancing the people's sense of gain, happiness and security and further improve the ability to safeguard social security," Qiu said.