Desperado

An outlaw was shot dead yesterday in Chongqing after committing ten murders in eight years. In a country where gun ownership is strictly forbidden, it is shocking enough to know a guy killing ten people with a shotgun. And panic was aroused when he was at large. Even after the police confirmed his death, doubts still remained on whether it was the government's plan of eliminating the fear, specially after the ID card on the dead body was found to be under a quite different name.

In my memory, China is always a safe place except for a few places in the south. But it seems to get unsafer recently. Robberies, pilferage and trafficking are happening everyday, and high-techs are widely applied in fraud. New terrifying experiences are released by Weibo and other social media from time to time, demonstrating culprits one of the most creative groups of people in China. Besides, crime rates are in China are more or less downplayed by the media in comparison to the hundreds died of "accidents" such as coal mine collapse or "natural disasters" like recent rainstorm in Beijing.

But more attention should be paid to the rising crime rates in China. Data released by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences shows that the crime rate in China has increased by 10% in 2010, with an unmatched slow increase in the police force and a substantially lower-than-average ratio of police-to-population. In other words, a large number of culprits have evaded justice. There is rumor that the "stabilizing fee" in China has surpassed the military expenditure, but it looks like the money is not spent in the right way.

Many factors contribute to an increasing crime rate, and economy recession is always one of them. Some people may deny this, but China is suffering in the post-stimulus era, which is also released by the decreasing GDP growth rate in recent quarters. If labor work cannot produce enough earnings for a living and social security system is in severe lack, people have no choice but to go for illegal ways. Chow, the recent shot-dead desperado chose to lurk by banks, kill people after they withdrew cash and take away the money. In addition, enlarging income gap between industries, regions and urban/rural areas also exacerbates the tension as these brutal actions are justified by poor people in the sense of reversing social inequality. Other factors also matter, including ignorance of mental health of the bottom, ineffective vocational training to unemployed, lack of capable police force, etc.

People have different views on how many responsibilities that the government should take, but no one'd doubt that keeping peace is one of them. It is opaque how the government of China spends tax payers' money, probably not much is spent against criminals. Some people eulogize the good public security in Mao's era, and criticized the change in Chinese society. On contrary, I view the increase in crime rate as a result of the poor public service provided by the government, rather than the lack of oppressive rules. With a freer market and transitional legal system, Chinese government needs to be better prepared for all the emerging issues, and to build supporting facilities to future development.