So far this year Beijing police have solved 88 percent of the
murder cases in the city. This is the highest detection rate in 20
years, the city's police bureau said yesterday.
The detection rate is 8 percent higher year-on-year which the
bureau described as "remarkable" progress. However, no specific
number of murder cases was given.
Zuo Zhijin, deputy director of the bureau's criminal
investigation department, said the figures were due to good police
work. "We treat murder cases as our top priority as they greatly
jeopardize social stability," he said.
Zuo recalled a murder case which was solved last week. Beijing
police stationed men in a rural village in northeast China's Liaoning Province for more than two months
until they finally caught the suspect. The police involved had on
occasions to brave temperatures of -10℃?and poor living
conditions.
He dismissed remarks that forced confessions were behind the
good results. Evidence collected by scientific and legitimate means
were the only basis for successful prosecutions.?
Zuo leads a team equipped with one of the best ballistics
laboratories in the world. It boasts an accuracy of 94 percent in
shell case identification and 90 percent in bullet
differentiation.
Better use of DNA sampling and the development of digital sound
wave identification technology to detect a suspect by his or her
voice also helped, Zuo explained. He added that the experience and
skills of police officers were also important factors.?
The success rate is much higher than that of many foreign cities
which usually is about 30 percent according to Zuo. He served in
the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) in Lyon,
France from 2000 to 2003.
Beijing police, however, are not satisfied with the results and
will make greater efforts to achieve the goal set in 2004 by the
Ministry of Public Security that "each murder case must be
solved."
"It will be difficult," Zuo said. "In countries such as the
United States that have no gun controls most of its crimes are
committed with firearms. But here there are thousands of
possibilities as to how a murder is committed."
In China there are eight categories of murder: manslaughter,
intentional injury, explosion, poisoning, arson, robbery, rape and
kidnapping cases that involve the killing of a person.
Last year 31,000 murder cases occurred in the country. Civil
disputes such as divorce or neighborhood quarrels and property
infringement were the major reasons, according to the ministry.
(China Daily December 8, 2006)