How China Handles "Crime"

[weiaijiayou]

Not sure where to put this but here goes.

 

The wife is always saying that China is safe and secure. The US has all these people who kill so many others and nothing seems to happen.

The absolute number of homicides each year is higher in China (~31,000) than in the United States (~18,000), so if the Chinese media would like to focus on violent killing they would have 172% of the material we have.

 

Of course there are more people in China than in the US, so if you figure out the multiplier to phrase each as a rate you get about 6 per 100,000 people killed per year in the US and about 2.38 per 100,000 people killed per year in China. That seems to put China¡¯s rate quite a bit lower than that in the US. BUT if you¡¯re going to talk about things statistically, both of these numbers are almost incomprehensibly low. If you take each rate and multiply it out over an 80 year period, you get a lifetime probability of being murdered of about .005 in the US and .002 in China. Metaphorically speaking, that means if you have an urn with 1000 balls ¨C red balls representing that your life will end by homicide, green ones representing that your life will end in some other way ¨C by living in America you are effectively choosing from an urn with 5 red balls and 995 green, and in China you are choosing from an urn with only 2 red ones and 998 green. The two gambles seem pretty similar to me personally, but the picture one gets from the respective countries¡¯ news media is a lot different.

[knloregon]

China's continued crack down on gun smuggling (get caught---good way to draw a death sentence) ----and the constant emphasis that the reason for this rigid enforcement of China's gun laws ----that is: Individuals don't own guns----is also widely sold to the public as a public safety measure (it is) and for public harmony, and as a deterrent to gangs.

 

Interesting that when the US State department puts out its preachy condemnation of China's human rights record, which it does some years, but not others, given our domestic (and now economic) political posture, China ALWAYS pushes back (among other failings in America) --with the number of violent gun crimes committed in the US, citing example after example, pages long...

 

Is true though, an unarmed population promotes not only domestic harmony, but political as well, if you get my drift..

[cguo7]

I heard something similar from my husband too. I think it's more difficult to have the police help you in China than it is in the US. I lived in China for 1.5 years and had a couple experiences where I felt I definitely would have been safer in the US. I'm a Chinese American, so I look just like the CHinese there. If I were a different skin color, I probably would have gotten help or some situations could have been avoided altogether.

 

1st incident: I was in Inner Mongolia and called attention to a lady that had her bag open, there was a boy behind her who had his hand in her purse. When I foiled his attempts, his cronies came out of hiding and started throwing things at me, yelling, and then chased me down the street. It was a busy street right next to the police station! No one else wanted to help because they were too scared of the thieves and the police just don't have enough power to stop the thieves.

 

2nd incident: I was in Nanchang, Jiangxi and a woman snatched an electronic out of my husband's bag. He grabbed her and I began shouting for help. Once again, no one helped and their cronies came out of hiding to confront us. They left us because we didn't make a huge fuss. My husband told me he wasn't going to do anything because they were of the Xinjiang minority and were allowed to carry knives and that they wouldn't hesitate to use them. This was on a busy street in downtown. The police just don't have enough power and/or are corrupt.

 

I say they can be corrupt because I have friends in China who are policemen, or who know other policemen and they relay stories of their "deeds and gifts" back and forth. Also, a lot of the foreigners I know that own shops in China talk about how they have to give "bribes" out to the higher ups in order to stay in business, and it's apparently very common. I knew I had to get back to the US after my experience in China because it really scared me that "police help" was very inconsistent over there. A lot of the Chinese people's actions and ways of thinking are very different from my own ( I thought I knew what to expect since my family was originally from Taiwan, but it's just really different.)

[Carl]

A Tianamen Square would never happen here!.

 

Imagine being shot at by your own troops.

As a matter of fact it did happen.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

 

Larry

 

At Kent State, some dunderhead made the mistake of issuing live ammunition to national guadr troops. Unlike now most national guard of the time were not trained to the level or as disciplined as the national guards of today are.

What few people know that after the shootings, at least to my history professor in college, is that regular army troops were sent in to restore order, which they did without any ammunition.

 

Unlike Tiamamen Square, the outrage over the shootings led to changes in the training of national guard troops in crowd control techniques.

[Eric739]

I didn't think this thread would get this far but some comments.

 

As to China's crime rate especially violent crimes, it is far lower per capita than most industrialized countries including the US. I Googled it a while ago and some rates are different since some countries don't publish comparable figures by date:

 

Russia: o.201534

South Africa: 0.0562789

America: 0.042802

India: 0.0344083

France: 0.0173272

Canada: 0.0149063

Britain: 0.0140633

Denmark: 0.0106775

Japan: 0.00499933

 

Murder Rates by Country

 

Why? Some think China will execute you fast, often with little real justice, and send a bill for the bullet to your family. (True.) Others will say that much of China's murders go unreported. (Probably also true.)

 

Recent crime studies do indicate validity in the deterrent aspect of murder but not in the case of the crazy ones such as Ft Hood.

 

Tiannenman Square did lead to some changes for China at least. They got even more disciplined. One of the reasons T-Square dragged on so long was troops were brought in from Shenyang (and other areas) early on who obviously spoke Mandarin, the same language as the protestors. So the soldiers were more sympathetic to the protest since they understood them. Deng recognized that and as military chief ordered troops from the South who spoke Cantonese as their main language. That took a while but when they arrived the massacre happened shortly afterward. They did not understand the pleas made by the protestors.

 

But if you got to CHina and Google T-Square (or the June 4the Incident), you will get a vastly different set of sites than you would here. Several Chinese students were questioned recently about T-Square and they knew nothing about it.

 

It's no wonder they feel more "secure."

 

 

Kent State Study

 

Kent State was more than an issue of training. The protest had carried on for many days prior to the actual shooting and the guardsmen felt their lives were in jeopardy. In contrast, just a few days earlier, they were seen talking and acting friendly to the protestors as in T-Square.

 

The protests were also nationwide, having increased after Nixon ordered an "incursion" (love that word) into Cambodia. Trials later validated the view that the guardsmen were in danger, especially when martial law was "rumored" to have been issued. (It was not.) But one civil trial ordered restitution to the 4 students who were killed in the amount equal to what it would cost the State of Ohio for a new trial. Later studies agreed with that judgement.

 

The guardsmen did not feel they had to apologize but the general in charge of them did just before he died in 2008.

 

 

I was just curious about how people's experiences were and the facts that exist to either support or contradict their view. I, too, have had a lot of incidents in many countries and the police were nowhere.

 

I have also witnessed the French army getting as stupid as the Ohio NG in the Paris train station during the riots in 2007. That incident did not hit the newspapers as far as I know. Strangely, the people with me knew when to hit the ground and didn't seem the least bit afraid.

[weiaijiayou]

I didn't think this thread would get this far but some comments.

 

As to China's crime rate especially violent crimes, it is far lower per capita than most industrialized countries including the US. I Googled it a while ago and some rates are different since some countries don't publish comparable figures by date:

 

Russia: o.201534

South Africa: 0.0562789

America: 0.042802

India: 0.0344083

France: 0.0173272

Canada: 0.0149063

Britain: 0.0140633

Denmark: 0.0106775

Japan: 0.00499933

 

Murder Rates by Country

 

Why? Some think China will execute you fast, often with little real justice, and send a bill for the bullet to your family. (True.) Others will say that much of China's murders go unreported. (Probably also true.)

What are these numbers? Assuming these numbers are for homicides, and if these are rates per 1000, it must be old data, because that would mean only 4 per 100,000 in the US are murdered per year. If you look at the most recent data it's more like 6, as I said.

 

But again, what does it mean to simply list the rates for different countries and, if they look far apart (i.e., if there are many countries in between), say they are more different? It needs to be put into some terms people can understand and evaluate for themselves.

[Zhou Zhou]

A Tianamen Square would never happen here!.

 

Imagine being shot at by your own troops.

As a matter of fact it did happen.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

 

Larry

 

 

VOW you learn something new every day.

I guess never say never.

 

And remember all of those killed in the struggle for rights of workers...Ludlow, Dearborn, the miners and the massacre of US Veterans of the Bonus Army, the non-violent Civil Rights movement...a "Tianamen" in the US would be worse.

[Eric739]

And remember all of those killed in the struggle for rights of workers...Ludlow, Dearborn, the miners and the massacre of US Veterans of the Bonus Army, the non-violent Civil Rights movement...a "Tianamen" in the US would be worse.

 

Nothing could compare to the worse mass murderer in history: Mao.

 

The counts vary but they are in the millions (30 is the least number I read) and not of soldiers in war either. Never mind the other millions he starved.

[Zhou Zhou]

And remember all of those killed in the struggle for rights of workers...Ludlow, Dearborn, the miners and the massacre of US Veterans of the Bonus Army, the non-violent Civil Rights movement...a "Tianamen" in the US would be worse.

 

Nothing could compare to the worse mass murderer in history: Mao.

 

The counts vary but they are in the millions (30 is the least number I read) and not of soldiers in war either. Never mind the other millions he starved.

 

The facts are that the US is now the most violent country on the planet.

Countries bombed by US SINCE WWII: China, Korea, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, Congo, Peru, Laos, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Grenada, Lebanon, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Iran, Panama, Iraq, Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Pakistan, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Syria, and Philadelphia (MOVE, 1985).

[Eric739]

And remember all of those killed in the struggle for rights of workers...Ludlow, Dearborn, the miners and the massacre of US Veterans of the Bonus Army, the non-violent Civil Rights movement...a "Tianamen" in the US would be worse.

 

Nothing could compare to the worse mass murderer in history: Mao.

 

The counts vary but they are in the millions (30 is the least number I read) and not of soldiers in war either. Never mind the other millions he starved.

 

The facts are that the US is now the most violent country on the planet.

Countries bombed by US SINCE WWII: China, Korea, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, Congo, Peru, Laos, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Grenada, Lebanon, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Iran, Panama, Iraq, Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Pakistan, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Syria, and Philadelphia (MOVE, 1985).

 

Apples and oranges. You are counting soldiers at war. Mao didn't really care about his own people much less his armies. And the countries you list could not compare to the millions lost in Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution.

 

When told about the millions who were starving in the Great (Famine) Leap Forward, he said, "We will lose a few."

 

Oh well....

[Tony_onrock]

Eric, the story about soldiers from the North and South in Tianmen Square are baseless. I will not elaborate.

Crime rate in China are lower, esp. violent crimes. Part of it is due to the punishment and another part is due to the fact that China has more or less only one race. You do hear and see a lot of crimes being committed by Xinjiang people here. Take Shanghai for instance, pick pockets are a lot less now that the Xinjiang people are being chased out. The little town I lived in in NJ had practically no crime rate to talk about. Really depends on location. In China the same is true. In poor Jianxi province, Henan Province, Guizhou etc. crime rate is much higher. Crime against property are more common in China. Mugging, which is pretty constent thing in inner cities in the US is relatively rare. You don't get much money and very little change of probation or parol for mugging some one.

[chengdu4me]

I asked my wife about crime in China. Her answer was very simple...

 

"Why? Nobody has anything more than you. Most people are poor. What are you going to take from a poor person that you don't already have? Are you going to steal their misery?"

 

The long answer is the government and the laws and the punishment. Her answer makes much more sense to me.

[knloregon]

"...Eric, the story about soldiers from the North and South in Tianmen Square are baseless. I will not elaborate..."

 

Eric, a good (western) eyewitness account of the Tiananmen Square massacre can be found in Harrison Salisbury's "The New Emperors"

 

One of the reasons the west (and us) are still talking about this event 20 years past, is because there were many idealistic Western journalists covering the Democracy Movement during their own professional formative years as reporters, in Beijing, and haven't come to grips with the reality that it was..... well, twenty years ago.

 

Harrison Salisbury was a little different. He already was a very seasoned reporter ----Soviet Union mostly, but also the interface between China and the SU-----and the tensions never reported in the West during the Cold War.

 

Worth reading, as it somewhat supports Tony_onrock...

[Bigguy_33]

 

Crime rate in China are lower, esp. violent crimes.

 

This has been discussed several times before on this site.

 

Crime in China

 

I lived in China for most of 2 years and I disagree that crime rate in China is lower. Crime in China is just as pervasive as anywhere else in the world. You have kidnapping of women all the time in rural areas and in large cities such as Chengdu, the regional metropolis. At the labour market on Chengdu's Nine Eye Bridge it's estimated that 30 women go missing from the Nine Eye Bridge labour market every day.

I would suggest anyone watch this video on kidnapping in China from Chengdu.

 

http://www.insightnewstv.com/d08/

 

You have lots of low level type of crimes such as robberies, break-ins, purse-snatch, street attacks in the cities. Additionally spousal and domestic abuse and prostitution is off the charts in China. Not to mention other low level crime such as forgery, counterfeiting, bribery, paying off police and criminally building substandard and inferior building and consumer products which kills their own people.

 

You should also remember China is executing about 8,000 people every year, almost 20 times as many as the rest of the world combined so that is another indication that your statement that crime rate in China is very low is not factual. If there was a low crime rate, then they would not be executing 20 times the number of people as other countries in the world combined.

 

If you read stories here for a few years, you would also see many men have posted soon after they gave their girlfriends an engagement ring it was stolen on the bus or out of their house. It even happened again when the guy purchased them a second ring.

 

Finally, if you look at low rise apartment building through out China, you will see bars on windows all over. It looks very depressing and those bars are not to keep mosquitoes out.

 

There maybe is less killings with guns in China, but there is crime just like any other place in the world. Additionally, with the Communist controlling the media and newspapers there is not going to be the accurate reporting of any illegal activities or serious crimes which make them look bad.

 

If anyone feels China is such a wonderful place without crime, then make yourself happy and move there and enjoy your life. Once you are there for a year or two you may change your mind. In one 6 week period I got robbed 3 times, and none of this was reported to the police. One of times I got robbed I was in a hospital getting treatment and was laughed at when I suggested calling the police. I was told by hospital employees, that the police do not want to hear about my robbery.

 

It is very easy to sit back in good old safe USA and say the crime rate in China is low, but move there, and not just visit there for a few days and be lead around by the nose by your sweetheart who you just met for the first or second time, then you will immediately start to see the real depressing China.

 

You can also watch this video in China of women getting the snot beat of them for their money.

 

China robbery

 

Low crime rate in China, what a joke!

Edited November 17, 2009 by Bigguy_33 (see edit history)

[Guest Pommey]

Thats why motorbikes are banned inside many cities in china , women wear money panties and carry just a little cash in handbag.

 

Yep there is crime in China as everywhere.