Chinese police authorities busted 2.097 million criminal cases in 2005, up 4.6 percent over the previous year, the Ministry of Public Security announced in Beijing Thursday.

In 2005, Chinese police authorities recorded 4.648 million criminal cases, down 1.5 percent over the previous year.

Ministry spokesman Wu Heping said ordinary people "felt more secure in 2005." Opinion polls released by the National Bureau of Statistics early this month show that 91.9 percent of respondents feel that the current public security is safe or generally safe.

Wu said that, in 2005, Chinese police authorities made great efforts to bust murder, robbery and theft cases; intensively cracked down on drug trafficking, gambling and economic crimes; and prevented pornographic material spreading on the Internet or in text messages, so that the high crime trend was curbed.

He said some new features emerged in criminal cases in 2005.

"Marital problems became one of the major causes of murder. A certain number of murder cases occurred, because family disputes were not solved in time," said Wu, citing an example from southwest China's Sichuan Province, where a murderer killed several of his wife's family members because of economic disputes and disagreements about child education.

Wu said robbery and theft cases were frequent in 2005. More than three million robbery and theft cases occurred last year, accounting for 80 percent of the year's total criminal cases. Most robbery and theft occurred near banks and financial organizations.

Automobile theft was rampant. In 2005, Chinese police authorities recorded 683,000 automobile theft cases, up 2.9 percent over the previous year, said Wu.

"Automobile theft gangs are always well organized. They have specialists for every detail of the theft, including stealing, refitting, transporting and selling illicit cars," said Wu.

He believes that the key issue in weeding out automobile theft is to block the crime gang's sales channels for the stolen cars.

He said more concern should be shown about juvenile delinquents. In 2005, criminals under the age of 18 accounted for 13.6 percent of the total criminal offenders arrested by the Chinese public authorities.

The impact on juvenile delinquents of family problems and dropping out of schools is obvious. There are 4.2 times as many juvenile delinquents from divorced families as from ordinary families, ministry figures show. Half the juvenile delinquents had not completed their nine years' compulsory education, Wu said.

Source: Xinhua