Low Crime Rate...

[IllinoisDave]

I would think that the relative lack of openess about crimes,lack of reporting them by victims and unreliable reporting of the stats by police/gov't would tend to skew any statistics you get from ANY source,domestic or not.

 

That's not to say Jesse is right or wrong. He didn't say there was NO crime, just that the rate was low. It's just hard to know what the real numbers are to compare.

[Guest ShaQuaNew]

Confecturing? Is that slang for 'making up things to prove a point' ?

 

I don't want to dip into a personal attack here, i only suggest two things:

 

1. you don't have the stats to back up your conjecture.

2. china doesn't release stats on crime.

 

 

 

I think he meant confectioner

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Saint-remy-de-pce-confiseries.jpg/300px-Saint-remy-de-pce-confiseries.jpg

 

Yeah, you're right. There is a crime wave happening right here in China. Why just this morning, I noticed several stores selling sweet bread, and rolls had been attacked by gun-toting gangs who shot up the stores and passers by. I was lucky to escape with my life. I did manage to collect a few confectionary treats tho...

 

Edited October 15, 2008 by ShaQuaNew (see edit history)

[lostinblue]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122394012224530655.html

 

Staring Down the Barrel: the Rise of Guns in China

In a Nation That Bans Guns and Celebrates Them, Armed Criminals and Hunters Pose New Problems for Authorities

 

Shanghai -- China's weapons laws are among the world's toughest. Its blanket ban on private ownership of rifles, pistols and even gun replicas is a core tenet of social policy. Still, a gun culture is taking hold.

 

China may be freer from gun crime than many nations, and official statistics show overall crime on a continuous down trend. Yet, these days, reports about gun crimes turn up as often as several times a week even in the tightly controlled state-run media. The reports are often brief, without much follow-up as cases progress. Still, the splashy gunfights, murders, gun-factory raids and smuggling busts that get reported contrast with China's zero-tolerance stance on guns, and point to changes in criminals' behavior.

 

But the trend is about more than crime. Guns are now fashionable in paintings and movies, while Chinese-language Web sites and glossy magazines cater to gun buffs. And legal shooting clubs in cities let customers fire away at targets for a fee. Bored with golfing, some affluent businessmen slip into the countryside for hunts.

 

Even as China's government seeks to keep guns off the street, and shields its massive gun-manufacturing business behind state-secrets laws, it helps stoke the public imagination about guns. Schoolchildren learn to salute the flag shouldering imitation rifles, while state media celebrate the heroism of military and athletic marksmanship.

 

"In the 1960s, shooting was for national defense," said Xie Xianqiao, a former amateur shooting coach. "These days, shooting is entertainment."

 

Weapons Trail

See a timeline of major events involving guns in China.

Erosion in China's gun controls reflects the Communist Party's slow retreat from most people's daily lives. Chinese increasingly spend their free time as they want. The Party also has less power to control the supply of guns at a time when the wealthy are looking for protection and recreation, and criminals are searching for an advantage.

 

The main source of guns appears to be lax control of gun factories and theft from arsenals. China is one of the world's largest gun manufacturers -- for the export market and for its security forces. Older guns are left from past wars and a time when hunting was common. The police have also busted workshops that forge guns and bullets by hand inside China. Meanwhile, people illegally import replicas -- exact-looking imitations of guns.

 

The government holds gun-surrender drives, appealing to citizens with posters in subways to turn in arms with no questions asked, or even for cash. A six-month campaign this year netted 79,000 guns, 1.8 million replica guns and 5.75 million bullets, the Ministry of Public Security said last month. A similar effort in 2006 turned up 178,000 guns and 638,000 replicas in four months.

 

 

Associated Press

A particular frustration for Chinese authorities is the proliferation of fake weapons, such as the ones destroyed by Shanghai police last year.

Authorities report on gun seizures in order to demonstrate their ability to control the flow of weapons. But the effort backfired in July, when three journalists were injured after a gun misfired during a police news conference on illegal weapons in Nanchong, Sichuan.

 

Yet gun crimes continue to grab headlines. Early last year, a man in the northeast went on a rampage with a homemade pistol, killing five family members and neighbors. In September 2007, a young Guangzhou man was found guilty of using a replica gun to rob a bank customer of $218,000, and drew a 19-year prison sentence. In December, a guard at a munitions dump machine-gunned a colleague over a chess match. Two days later, he was killed, too, in a shootout with police.

 

Guns have also been a factor in this year's unrest in China's remote Tibetan and Muslim regions. A policeman was hit six times in an April incident that authorities described as a "gun battle" that left him and a Tibetan insurgent dead.

 

The Ministry of Public Security says its police increasingly face armed and aggressive suspects. Most Chinese police aren't armed, and they sometimes are provided little more than a uniform to do their job. An emerging market for bulletproofing underscores the need. At a police-gear trade show in Beijing last April, bulletproof vests bearing Chinese police logos were on display, along with bulletproof BMWs and Jaguars. DuPont Co. showed the protective qualities of Kevlar.

 

Like other technologies, guns have a long history here. Chinese invented gunpowder more than a thousand years ago, and soon developed one of the first guns, called a "fire spear." Rifles were widely available by the late 19th century, when war and revolution began engulfing the country. In 1938, as the Communists battled the Japanese and the ruling Nationalists for control, Mao Zedong made his famous remark that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" -- foreshadowing strict gun laws the Communists later imposed.

 

Gun control was introduced in 1966, after children aiming a Spanish rifle at sparrows near Tiananmen Square shot out a window in the Great Hall of the People, according to an official history of the Ministry of Public Security. Authorities grew more vigilant after the violently suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations of 1989, and after rapid economic growth began to spur social tensions.

 

 

Newscom

Earlier this year, police checked illegally owned guns in China's Henan province.

The government imposed the current rules in 1996, forbidding the private manufacture, sale, transport, possession, import or export of bullets and guns, including replicas.

 

Possession of a single gun is grounds for a prison sentence of as long as three years, and the penalty for a gun crime often is execution. In July, a Shanghai man drew a prison sentence of 12 years, and his wife 11 years, for possessing three guns and 600,000 bullets, plus peddling weapons on the Internet.

 

Chinese authorities say they dealt with 4,666 gun cases last year. Officials often respond to sensational gun crimes in the U.S. and elsewhere by affirming the need to maintain tough laws.

 

With guns often hard to buy, some criminals forge them instead. Late last year, Shanghai police responded to a call about a robbery in progress at a gritty scrap yard. According to a police spokesman, officers spotted a man fleeing the scene and yelled "freeze," but he pulled a crude homemade pistol from a bag.

 

Witnesses say the suspect was brought down after a gunfight that had shots echoing all around the neighborhood. A police spokesman said the suspect, identified as Tang Qingjie, was shot in the leg by an officer. He said Mr. Tang had never managed to fire his weapon, which in a police photo appeared to have been soldered together.

 

The handling of Mr. Tang's case also offers a possible indication of why gun crimes in China seem so rare. They sometimes aren't highlighted when criminal charges are made public. When Shanghai prosecutors formally arraigned Mr. Tang in September, they alleged he committed robbery -- a serious charge but not one that automatically suggests use of a weapon.

 

Speaking generally about Chinese law, a court spokesman said evidence of a gun can be introduced during a robbery trial. But criminal trials in China aren't always open to the public, and evidence can be suppressed.

 

The Communist Party lauds marksmanship enough to give freshmen college students basic training in it. Shooting produced a national hero for China in 1984, when Xu Haifeng became the country's first Olympic gold medalist by winning the 50-meter pistol event in Los Angeles. At this year's Beijing Games, China won five of its 51 gold medals in shooting events.

 

Beijing's support for the sport has helped spur a rise of hobby enthusiasts. The government has sanctioned businesses such as the Shanghai East Shooting Club, a former bomb shelter where customers can have a drink and fire a variety of weapons. Owner Zhang Jiewei says his clients are looking to relax.

 

But increasingly, gun fans are gaining access to guns -- and hunting illegally. In rural Anhui province last year, a group of wealthy businessmen, gun-club owners and former army officers organized wild-fowl shoots. Feasting on game cooked in a spicy brown sauce, one of them toasted, "Guns have brought us together."

 

Gun buffs can turn to Small Arms, a twice-monthly glossy magazine that claims 60,000 subscribers. The Beretta M9 semiautomatic pistol "is classic," said Zheng Zhoujian, an 18-year-old reader. "I envy people in other countries where guns are legal."

 

-- Ellen Zhu and Bai Lin contributed to this article.

 

Write to James T. Areddy at james.areddy@wsj.com

[Guest ShaQuaNew]

 

With guns often hard to buy, some criminals forge them instead. Late last year, Shanghai police responded to a call about a robbery in progress at a gritty scrap yard. According to a police spokesman, officers spotted a man fleeing the scene and yelled "freeze," but he pulled a crude homemade pistol from a bag.

 

We used to call these zip guns. Very effective technology for the crime wave now plaguing China...

 

[Jeikun]

*** was victim of attempted rape twice (once other people came on the scene, once she pulled a knife that she carried ever since the first one), and what in the US would be sexual assault more than once. Number of reports 0. Ex husband blamed HER for the attempted rape "Why did he choose YOU? He could have picked other women!"

 

I doubt it's unique, that unless caught in the act more often than not they go unreported as it's a lot of trouble, and humiliation for the victim and the family. Can't be losing face, you know.

 

Yeah I know crimes go unreported in the US too, and I know any story or experience I offer up is anecdotal, but I highly doubt the crime rate is "so much lower" there than here.

 

Though, I would believe that there are less violent crimes per capita, because compared to many other nations that do have free media and accurate reporting we don't measure up so well.

 

But on the other hand, China bragging about low crime rates kind of reminds me of when Iraq bragged that Saddam got 100% of the vote. There's a threshold when, with hard proof or not you just have to say "Oh please!"

[Joey and Yan]

2006 in Foshan , Nanhai district while I was working in China. People found early in the morning a girl whom worked at local disco apparently had her throat cut while walking home from work late at night. Crime and drugs are a bad problem in the larger cities for sure.

Drugs especially at the Discos and KTV bars are sold in plain site.

we bought bikes two years ago , only to have them stolen out of the parking garage.

Housing searches in Foshan are normal now as we became accustomed to them. Search warrant? What is that. Let them look around , check the resident book we leave by the front door and life goes back to normal.

After working in Hong Kong and China for 6 years , I have seen plenty. Best to just stay at home or definetely travel in a pack of friends. But I will have to say I feel safer walking down the street in China than I do in some if the USA cities. Most crimes in China do not allow a bail hearing and put the criminal back on the streets again within 24 hours.With way our own economy is now , Crime will only rise as desperation increases.

[Guest ShaQuaNew]

It was very dangerous walking to work today. I had to find my way around several pregnant women, and old men crowded around a vegetable stand.

 

[rogerluli]

It was very dangerous walking to work today. I had to find my way around several pregnant women, and old men crowded around a vegetable stand.

 

 

You are lucky to live in a city that is crime-free Jesse... My wife was robbed of her suitcase and purse coming out of the GZ train station...She was kicked when she tried to resist and still has nightmares about it...

[GZBILL]

It was very dangerous walking to work today. I had to find my way around several pregnant women, and old men crowded around a vegetable stand.

 

 

You are lucky to live in a city that is crime-free Jesse... My wife was robbed of her suitcase and purse coming out of the GZ train station...She was kicked when she tried to resist and still has nightmares about it...

 

GZ train station is the most dangerous place in China. Even cops and soldiers are afraid to patrol in there unless in groups.