--are no gangs-no crime--everyone helps their neighbors.
why--hate to beat a dead horse--but once again the obvious--Family values -it's a cultural thing.
:shrug: :shrug:
Spiraling crime grips China
BEIJING | A series of grisly attacks in China, including school stabbings, a courthouse shooting and a slashing rampage on a train, have forced the public and officials to confront what analysts say is the long-hidden problem of spiraling violent crime.
Criminologists at home and abroad say violent incidents in China have long been underreported by police, but it's becoming harder for authorities to stifle news about the worst cases when ordinary people are quick to spread information via mobile phones and the Internet.
In the past two months, there have been five major assaults against schoolchildren, leaving 17 dead and more than 50 wounded. This week, two more attacks made headlines: A man burst into a court office in central China and fatally shot three judges, and on the same day, a woman slashed nine fellow passengers in sleeper compartments on an overnight train in the northeast.
The apparently random attacks in public spaces have shocked and frightened the public and left people desperate to understand why they're happening.
"Of course I am scared; what if this happens to us?" said Shen Caiyi, a Beijing mother, as she watched her 7-year-old son kick and block his way through a kung-fu class she hopes could help prepare him for any potential attack. "The events have shaken us. I think schools should have strengthened their security systems a long time ago."
According to official statistics, violent crime in China jumped 10 percent last year, with 5.3 million reported cases of homicide, robbery and rape. It was the first time since 2001 that violent crime increased, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in its Chinese Rule of Law Blue Book, released in February.
Analysts like Pi Yiyun, a professor of criminology at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, are skeptical about those figures.
Mr. Pi said he doesn't know what the actual rates are, but he doesn't think it's plausible that violent crime was falling between 2001 and 2008. He said provincial or county-level officials, not the central government, are likely misreporting their data.
"Many local officials believe the crime rate is just a number that can be randomly modified," he said. "They tend to cover up the truth and report a false number because a high crime rate might affect their chance of being promoted."
He said the big jump in 2009 could be an attempt to bring the figures closer in line with the real situation.
Story Continues →
Borge Bakken, an analyst on Chinese crime and professor of sociology at the University of Hong Kong, said his research indicates violence, particularly homicides, has been climbing since 1980.
"The real crime problem is much higher than the recorded official crime rates, and the police are well aware of that fact," he said.
Official anxiety about the spiraling crime problem is reflected clearly in this year's budget, with sharp spending increases for public security.
Analysts say China's problem is not a lack of police, high-tech security equipment or surveillance cameras, which are plentiful in the big cities, but simmering and widespread frustration over the growing wealth gap, corruption and too few legal channels for people who have grievances.
"Societies are pressure cookers - and Chinese society, arguably, is particularly high-pressure and has relatively few legitimate avenues for recourse and few legitimate ways to release intense psychological pressure," said Harold Tanner, a professor of Chinese history at the University of North Texas. "The system as a whole, even when it is working more or less as designed, does not provide people with enough legitimate avenues for pursuit of justice."
Mr. Tanner pointed out that several of the recent attacks were sparked by grudges.
State media said the man who killed three judges before committing suicide was upset over how the court had divided assets when he and his wife had divorced. One of the men who attacked schoolchildren had a rent dispute that local authorities refused to help him resolve.
