Crackdown brings sense of security

Nearly 270,000 criminal cases have been resolved over the past month as a result of an ongoing nationwide campaign to rectify social disorder, while good results have been achieved to ensure people's sense of security, officials with the Ministry of Public Security said on Friday.

In the first half of this year, criminal cases nationwide fell by 16.3 percent year-on-year, and people's sense of security has steadily improved, Qiu Baoli, head of the ministry's security administration bureau, said at a news conference in Beijing.

However, shortly after the beginning of summer, some crimes such as picking quarrels and provoking trouble, intentional injury, affray and robbery in public places have had a relatively high incidence, like the assault case in Tangshan of Hebei province where four women were beaten by a group of men on June 10, resulting in a bad social impact, he said,

According to the ministry, since June 25 public security organs nationwide have launched a 100-day campaign to crack down on prominent illegal activities and social disorder, and resolve various security risks.

By the end of July, police nationwide resolved 269,800 criminal cases and arrested 465,800 suspects, establishing a strong deterrence nationwide. Meanwhile, police at the ministerial and provincial public security departments investigated 506 public security problems and supervised the handling of 1,800 major cases.

Wang Yongming, an inspector of the ministry's criminal investigation bureau, said that the authorities coordinated the campaign with the other ongoing actions to fight against the abduction and trafficking of women and children, sexual assault, and fraud targeting the elderly to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the vulnerable groups.

Over the past month, criminal investigation departments across the country solved 124 cases of abducting and trafficking women and children and recovered 153 abducted and missing people. Also, they solved 2,489 sexual assault cases, according to official data.

In one typical case released by the ministry, police in the Guangzhou Railway Public Security Bureau in Guangdong province investigated a case of disturbing public order in November 2021.

After months of investigation, the police gradually detected a criminal network led by two males and one female who threatened and forced disabled people to beg for them.

The police reported the case to the ministry. On July 18, with the deployment of the ministry, the Guangzhou Railway Public Security Bureau, together with the police in Chengdu of Sichuan province, Kunming of Yunnan province and Urumqi of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, detained 45 suspects and rescued 25 deaf-mute people, including 12 females.

Since 2019, the group lured the disabled in the name of helping them find jobs. The group used violent means to threaten them and organized them to beg in train and bus stations, squares, scenic spots and shopping malls across the country, according to the Guangzhou police.

The group was involved in 516 criminal cases and the money involved reached 1.2 million yuan ($178,000). The suspects have been detained and the case is under further investigation.