Juvenile Crime on Rise in China

[951-Riverside]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIJING (AP) -- The number of underage criminals in China has more than doubled in the last decade, and experts blame the rise on broken families, loosened social controls and the Internet's negative influence, an official newspaper reported.

Academics put the number of juvenile criminals - those between the ages of 14 and 18 - at about 80,000, up from 33,000 in 1998, the official China Daily said Wednesday, citing figures presented at a recent conference.

"Offenders' average ages have become younger and they are committing new types of crime and forming larger gangs," youth crime researcher Liu Guiming was quoted as saying.

Liu blamed the problem primarily on "the influence of broken families, the depletion of school education, and incomplete social management" - an apparent reference to the withdrawal of Communist Party influence in private lives amid the rise of the private sector.

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