Youth and white collar crimes are on the rise, posing new challenges to police and society, according to the Ministry of Public Security yesterday.

"More than 75 percent of robbery and looting cases were committed by those aged between 14 and 25," Wu Heping, the ministry's newly appointed?spokesperson, said yesterday while announcing crime figures for the first half of the year.

In the same period, Internet crime such as identity theft also increased rapidly, he said.

But many serious crimes decreased: arson (4,585 cases), intentional explosions (543), homicide (11,000) and rape (15,000) were all down year-on-year by 21, 17.7, 13.6 and 5.8 percent respectively.

There were 253,000 robbery and looting cases during the first six months, accounting for 12 percent of a total of 2.13 million criminal cases.

As to the reasons behind the growth in youth crime, one prosecutor who deals with such cases suggested that ill-treatment or lack of proper guidance at home could lead teenagers astray, as could negative influences from TV programs and computer games.

Wu said police departments and people from all walks of life need to make a concerted effort to curb the increase in youth and other types of crime.

The spokesperson said there had been improvements in fire and road accidents, which cause the largest number of fatalities; though 136,000 fires and 229,000 road accidents claimed the lives of 1,513 and 46,000 people respectively, this was down 6.7 and 7.1 percent year-on-year.

The number of vehicle-theft cases rose significantly during the period, and 243 vehicle theft gangs were busted. Wu said many criminals are good at disabling alarms and are equipped with master keys.

"The best way to deal with such cases is to undermine the market and block channels for stolen vehicles," he said.

(China Daily August 12, 2005)