Criminal cases in China fall in first nine months

China's police authority said on Sunday that the number of criminal cases, fire disasters and traffic accidents had all fallen over the first nine months of the year.

There were 3.34 million reported criminal cases from January to September, down 1.2 percent from last year, said Bai Jingfu, vice minister of public security.

"Only 1.48 million of the reported criminal cases have been solved. Nearly 85.5 percent of homicide or murder cases have been cracked, up 2.8 percent," Bai said.

The vice minister said the number of fire disasters, injuries, direct financial loss and traffic accidents all dropped markedly in the first nine months by a relatively big margin. But no details were given.

In 2005, China reported 235,941 fires, with 2,496 people killed and 2,506 injured. It also reported 450,254 road traffic accidents, with 98,738 killed and 469,911 injured.

The senior police official also urged local public security organs to streamline their administrative structures and dispatch more police to the communities.

"The complicated setup at many county-level police bureaus have resulted in a waste of police resources," Bai said.

As nearly half of the country's police force are administrative officers, the Ministry of Public Security has vowed to deploy more of them to communities where they can be more easily reached by residents.

Vice Minister Bai said that non-administrative police staff must account for at least 85 percent of every county's total police force.

Over 80,000 police have been dispatched to work at community police stations since the beginning of this year, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

China's national police force has 490,000 members.

Source: Xinhua