The appalling murder case that recently occurred in Handan City, Hebei Province, reminded me of an incident in our small city last year. Although this event was not widely known, it had a significant impact on the local area and became a landmark event. The story is simple: in a traditional manufacturing company, a male employee killed a female employee due to a relationship dispute and then committed suicide, resulting in the tragic death of both. This incident became the last straw that shattered our city’s image of safety, casting a thick shadow over a city that was once praised as the safest area in the Pearl River Delta.

Case and Background

The reason why this incident became a significant event does not lie in the terrifying nature of the crime or the special backgrounds of the murderer and the victim. The manufacturing company involved is just an ordinary small local company, and both employees come from ordinary families without any “identity labels” that could be hyped by the media. The crime was committed using a wet towel to suffocate the victim, and the suicide was caused by carbon monoxide poisoning from indoor charcoal burning.

Murder Rate

The key factor is that, with a population of only 500,000 in our small city, according to international standards for evaluating murder rates, every homicide increases the murder rate per 100,000 people by 0.2%. The target set by our superiors is to keep this data below 0.5%, meaning that our small city can only have a maximum of two murder cases per year.

Goal of Being the Safest

Starting in 2018, Guangdong Province, with a population of 130 million, set an important development goal to become the safest, fairest, and most just region with the best legal environment in all of China. In this pursuit of excellence, the murder rate is one of the most important indicators receiving greater attention. In fact, all provinces in China, except Taiwan, regard safety indicators as a top priority for the government. According to the common understanding of most Chinese people, the higher the level of economic development, the better the security, and the more economically and socially underdeveloped areas are prone to heinous crimes. After all, as the saying goes, “Poor mountains and evil waters breed cunning people.” As China’s top economic province, Guangdong’s goal also aligns with the expectations of most people.

Political Responsibility

Regarding the murder rate indicator, since it is a very objective indicator that is almost impossible to manipulate, its achievement is extremely difficult and requires a significant cost and sacrifice. To achieve the goals set by the national and provincial governments, various rules have been established to ensure the full implementation of the responsibility for preventing murders. If any province, city, county, or even township exceeds the standard, it will face strong political pressure from its superior government departments. Furthermore, if the number of cases exceeds a certain limit, the area will be blacklisted and required to carry out key rectifications. The main responsible persons of the government will face severe political responsibilities, and the local city will not be allowed to participate in various excellence evaluations and awards. The bonus income of all public employees in the local government will also be affected.

Of course, in the case mentioned above, although two people died, only the victim was counted in the murder death toll, while the suicide was recorded in another indicator of suicide rate per 100,000 people. However, compared to murder cases, suicides are slightly less important and have less social harm.

Global Comparison

According to the latest statistics from the World Bank on global murder rates, as of 2020, China’s ranking is relatively high, about 10th in the world. Countries with lower murder rates than China include Bahrain, Singapore, Kuwait, Japan, Oman, Vanuatu, Qatar, Luxembourg, and Italy, with a combined population of only 2.5% of the world’s total. Even Switzerland and Norway, which are considered “paradise”-like livable developed countries, rank behind China. refer：worldbankdata

Traditional Chinese Theories of Murder Prevention

For thousands of years, the theory of crime prevention has been an important part of Chinese philosophy. Ancient Chinese sages regarded “treating the disease before it occurs, managing chaos before it arises” as the highest realm and the best strategy for governance.

Feudal Dynasty Era

During 500 BC, Laozi proposed, “Act before things exist, manage before disorder arises.” Guanzi stated, “In governing a country, it is necessary to enrich the people first. …When the people are wealthy, they will value their homes and villages, respect their superiors, and fear punishment, making them easy to govern. When the people are poor, they will disregard their homes and villages, daring to defy authority and break laws, making them difficult to govern.” Dong Zhongshu of the Han Dynasty suggested, “The people’s pursuit of benefits is like water flowing downhill; without the dam of moral education to contain it, it cannot be stopped. Therefore, when moral education is established and all evildoing is halted, it is because the dam is complete; when moral education is abandoned and evildoing prevails, and punishment cannot prevail, it is because the dam is broken.” Over a period of more than 2000 years under the ruling philosophy of “external leniency and internal law,” strict punishment was often used as a fallback means of governing the country, while Confucianism’s “benevolence, love, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness” served as educational means to prevent crime.

Modern Prevention Theories

After the emergence of modern Western legal theories, the preventive effect of law has been discussed as a legal and ethical principle associated with the development of productivity and the risk society. Particularly since the rise of the technological revolution, in the late 1960s, Sweden and Germany took the lead in proposing the principle of prevention in the fields of environmental law and policy. By the 1980s and 1990s, the principle of prevention began to be widely accepted in international and domestic environmental law. Since the 21st century, the principle of prevention has been recognized by various legal fields beyond environmental law and has become a powerful and dominant legal principle. It is used as a legitimate reason for various government regulations and legal interventions.

Fengqiao Experience

In November 1963, Comrade Mao Zedong proposed that the “Fengqiao Experience” from Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province, should be studied and promoted nationwide. The main content of the “Fengqiao Experience” is to “mobilize and rely on the masses, persist in not escalating contradictions, solve problems locally, achieve fewer arrests, and maintain good public order,” along with a series of institutional measures to ensure the desired outcomes.

The contemporary “Fengqiao Experience”

The contemporary “Fengqiao Experience” is rooted in China’s excellent traditional culture, embodying the spirit and wisdom of the Chinese nation. It aligns with the governance concept of “morality as the main, law as the auxiliary, understanding virtue and exercising punishment with caution,” the principle of “preparing for the future and preventing ahead of time,” the judicial concept of “valuing harmony and stopping litigation,” and the cultural gene of “valuing righteousness over profit, with righteousness before profit.”

The contemporary “Fengqiao Experience” can be summarized as prevention first, mediation priority, application of law, and local resolution. In terms of the nature of contradictions, it deals with internal contradictions among the people. Regarding the objects of contradictions, it is mainly used to better address the reasonable and legitimate demands of the masses. In terms of working methods, the contemporary “Fengqiao Experience” uses negotiation and mediation as the primary approach, giving full play to the role of law in resolving disputes, and focuses on balancing social interests, regulating social relations, and standardizing social behaviors within the orbit of the rule of law.

Theory of Contradictions Among the People

Over the past 60 years, China’s economy and society have undergone tremendous changes, and the content and manifestation of social contradictions have also changed, with new types of crimes emerging. However, overall, China still adopts strategies based on the theory of “internal contradictions among the people” to promote problem-solving. In the “contradiction theory,” the contradictions between enemies and ourselves are antagonistic, while the contradictions within the people are non-antagonistic. Among the ruled and ruling classes, in addition to the antagonistic aspect, there is also a non-antagonistic aspect. According to this theory, if non-antagonistic contradictions are not resolved in a timely manner, they are likely to become antagonistic. Conversely, antagonistic contradictions may also ease and show a non-antagonistic side. Therefore, in socialist China, if you ask an ordinary person who the ruled class is, most people would first think of criminals serving sentences. The relationship between criminals and the people is already in an enemy-ourselves contradiction. For criminals who have completed their sentences, it is ultimately necessary for them to return to society and the masses, at which point the antagonistic contradictions have already begun to change.

In fact, compared to the 1960s, the specific content and manifestation of the internal contradictions among the people in contemporary China have also undergone significant changes.

• Population Changes

  • There has been a fundamental change in the proportion of urban and rural populations. In the 1960s, China’s urbanization rate was only 15%, but it has now increased to 66%.

  • The population composition has become complex. In the 1960s, China’s social population was divided into a few types such as workers, peasants, and intellectuals, but it has now been subdivided into 8 major categories and more than 1800 types.

  • There has been a fundamental change in population mobility. In the 1960s, the vast majority of China’s population lived, worked, and lived in the same area, but currently, the number of people separated from their household registration has reached more than 500 million, exceeding the national population size of the 1960s.

• Changes in the Content of Contradictions

  • In the 1960s, the main contradiction in Chinese society was judged to be the class contradiction, that is, the contradiction between the exploiting class and the exploited class. Overthrowing the exploiting class was considered as important as overthrowing the “three mountains” of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism.

  • The main contradiction in contemporary Chinese society is widely recognized as the contradiction between the people’s growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development. People’s demands for democracy, rule of law, fairness, justice, security, and the environment have significantly increased, with more attention to new contradictions such as real estate, finance, and public health.

• External Environment Changes

  • In the world pattern, the trade war and so-called “new cold war” unilaterally initiated by the United States against China have had a direct and significant impact on some industries that are developing in China, affecting employment, income,and investment security.

  • In the economic structure, after decades of development, China has now become the world’s second-largest economy, although there is still a significant gap from its historical position as the world’s largest economy for a long time, there has been a fundamental change compared to the 1960s.

  • In the information structure, the development of the internet has significantly changed the way people communicate or interact, with the vast majority of individuals unlikely to express extreme opinions in real life, but such information is readily available online, exacerbating the formation of contradictions.

  • In the governance structure, in the 1960s, China still highly revered the “rule by man” model and regarded it as the sole or primary approach. But now, the concept of the rule of law has taken root in people’s hearts. According to the World Bank’s 2020 Doing Business report, China’s ranking in the overall list has risen to 31st globally, with the rule of law in the business environment ranking relatively higher, and “quality of judicial procedures” topping the global list.

Murder cases must be solved.

After China implemented the “Reform and Opening-up” policy in 1978, the society was filled with vitality and numerous development opportunities, leading to an unprecedented phenomenon of free inter-regional movement among the people. This process also provided opportunities for criminals to commit crimes across regions, resulting in frequent occurrences of such cases and causing serious harm to the safety of people’s lives and property. Consequently, a term was coined within the Chinese police circles: “Murder cases must be solved.” Whether in the civil law system or the common law system, criminal law theories agree that an important function of criminal law is to prevent crime through the punishment of offenders. However, they also emphasize the extreme importance of “procedural justice,” considering it more significant than “substantive justice” and firmly advocating for the abolition of the death penalty. As a result, phenomena such as the acquittal of suspects in cases like the O.J. Simpson murder trial, or the Swedish mass murderer Breivik being sentenced to only 21 years in prison after killing 77 people, occur. However, such issues are absolutely unacceptable to the Chinese people. According to traditional Chinese theory, “killing someone must be compensated with life; it is a natural principle.” For heinous murder cases, even if there are flaws in the judicial process, as long as the facts stand up to scrutiny, judgments must be made based on the facts. It is under this principle that “murder cases must be solved” has become an inevitable pursuit. Therefore, an important aspect of discussions about murder cases on the contemporary Chinese internet is the unsolved cases from the 1980-1990s that remained due to the lack of necessary technical detection methods at the time.

Under the principle of “murder cases must be solved,” there have been instances of wrongful convictions, but compared to the vast number of cases over the decades, and the countless innocent victims who have lost their lives, these instances are extremely rare. Moreover, most of these wrongful convictions were not executed due to difficulties in making a decisive judgment at the time, and all have since been acquitted. Of course, with the current level of technology in China, it is almost impossible for cases to be declared solved based solely on torture and the confession of suspects, as was the case in the 1980s. The “wrongful convictions” that have come to light in recent years almost all occurred before 2000.

Current Practices in Murder Prevention

Under the guidance of Xi Jinping’s legal system thought and the overall national security concept, contemporary Chinese political and legal practices have constructed a preventive governance system comprised of multiple sub-systems. The first sub-system aims to prevent crime and maintain social order. As early as 2001, the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council put forth the policy of “combining crackdowns with prevention, with prevention as the priority” in their “Opinions on Further Strengthening the Comprehensive Management of Social Security.” In recent years, public security agencies have established the concept of “proactive policing” and “preventive policing,” emphasizing proactive investigation, monitoring, and early warning to detect potential criminal activities before they occur. The goal is to prevent incidents before they escalate, thereby minimizing harm and losses to the public. The second sub-system is aimed at preventing disputes and conflicts through diversified resolution methods. The 17th meeting of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms in 2015 stressed the improvement of the diversified dispute resolution mechanism: “Persist in source governance and prevention as the main principle, integrate the prevention of disputes throughout the entire process of major decision-making, administrative law enforcement, and judicial litigation.” To address the periods of heightened social disputes, surge in litigation cases, and frequent petition problems, judicial organs have proposed the concepts of origin governance for lawsuits, police action, and petitions, continuously enhancing the capability to prevent and resolve disputes. The third sub-system targets preventing public safety risks in governance. The report of the 20th National Congress of the CPC proposed: “Adhere to safety as the priority and prevention as the main approach, establish a comprehensive safety and emergency response framework, improve the public safety system and promote the transformation of the public safety governance model towards prevention before incidents occur.” In recent years, the public safety governance model has been accelerating its shift from post-incident response to pre-incident prevention, moving from traditional areas like production safety, transportation safety, food and drug safety, and hazardous materials safety to new fields including public health safety, bio-safety, and cyber security.1

Overall, given the relatively low incidence rate of homicides in China, the occurrence of such incidents is highly random and difficult to precisely predict. The entire society is constantly experiencing various disputes and conflicts, but it is challenging to discern which of these will escalate into homicides due to the lack of clear signs.

Randomness

Taking the most typical “crime of passion” as an example, a verbal altercation on the street can rapidly evolve into a violent incident. For this type of spontaneous homicide prevention, institutional designs must be developed from a broader perspective. For example, as early as 2002, China proposed to build a harmonious society. For individuals, “harmony” hopes that everyone can handle affairs with a more peaceful and stable mindset, avoiding extremes. Additionally, systematic poverty alleviation projects carried out by China over the past decades serve as another form of crime prevention for those in absolute poverty who believe that “life will not get worse anyhow.” After all, traditional Chinese culture has always believed that “the granary is full, and one knows the etiquette” and “those with constant property have a constant heart”; with certain economic conditions, people are less likely to resolve disputes using primitive, violent means.

Difficulty in Prevention

For example, a recent homicide case in Handan City, Hebei Province, where three middle school students under the age of 14 killed a classmate and buried the body, has drawn great attention from the Chinese public and dominated headlines for a month. According to Chinese criminal law, the general age of criminal responsibility is 16, and for eight types of serious violent crimes, including intentional homicide, it is 14 years old. For minors between the ages of 12 and 14, prosecution can only proceed with approval from the Supreme People's Procuratorate; such cases are exceedingly rare. Preventing juvenile crimes is even more challenging, as the malicious actions of the suspects are beyond everyone’s expectations, and hardly anyone would believe that 12-year-olds could commit such acts. It can be anticipated that, following this incident, government departments across China will intensify efforts to prevent juvenile delinquency, strengthening all-around protection for minors affected by school violence.Current Practices in Homicide Prevention

Prevention Over Choice

There is a Chinese saying that goes, “Better a thousand times careful than once overconfident,” meaning that even for events with a low probability, one should invest a thousandfold effort into prevention. This was fully demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control process from 2020 to 2022. In order to prevent the spread of the virus and avoid loss of life, China was not hesitant to implement the rare measure of “city lockdown,” a strategy unprecedented in recent human history. Even though some local governments adopted excessive epidemic prevention measures to ensure “zero risk” during the subsequent stages of the pandemic, these actions still garnered widespread public support.

Main Approaches

Murder prevention is a systematic project without a standard answer or shortcuts. As a popular joke goes, “When faced with multiple answers, children make choices, while adults take them all.” In my work, I have encountered more than ten approaches, which include:

1. Focused prevention during key periods: Analyze the times of the year when homicides are more likely to occur and implement targeted deployments. For example, there is a tradition in China to collect debts before the Lunar New Year, a period prone to severe incidents due to debt collection.

2. Real-time analysis and judgment of public security situations: Police use big data models to analyze “police situations, case situations, public sentiment, and social conditions” in their jurisdictions and organize corresponding response measures.

3. Conflict mediation and resolution: Implement graded alerts for disputes that could escalate into criminal cases, such as those involving marriages, economic transactions, neighborly relations, and illegal construction demolition, and assign personnel to follow up on each case to reduce conflicts at the source.

4. Targeted problem rectification: Concentrate on resolving prominent public security issues in the area that could lead to homicides. For example, from 2018 to 2020, China carried out a three-year special campaign against organized crime, busting 3,644 gangs and 11,675 criminal groups, and arresting 237,000 suspects.

5. Prevention of civil cases turning criminal: Strengthen the coordination of people’s mediation, litigation, and petitioning work to ensure that disputes among the public can be resolved through public channels, preventing private violent rights protection.

6. “Safe Family” initiative: Use traditional moral teachings to promote harmony within families and prevent domestic disputes from escalating into homicides. Family disputes are one of the leading causes of homicides.

7. Management of floating population services: mainly focus on strengthening the investigation of individuals with criminal records and potential mobile offenders, dynamically mastering population information to prevent crimes committed by outsiders. In the 1980s, China experienced several serious cases of mobile homicides, which were extremely heinous and still send chills down the spine today.

8. Management of unemployed and non-student youth: Provide one-on-one support and management for unemployed and non-student youth to promote their employment and education, preventing them from going astray.

9. Supervision and management of individuals with mental disorders: Implement a guardianship system for individuals with severe mental disorders according to a classified management system to ensure that “all those who should be treated are treated.” In the past decade, as the number of homicides in China has continued to decline, the issue of mentally ill individuals causing accidents, traditionally neglected, has begun to emerge. Through several years of effort, this issue has been well controlled overall.

10. Service and management of special groups: mainly strengthen the daily management of individuals involved in organized crime, those released from prison, community corrections individuals, and drug users. For key individuals such as those prone to violent behavior after drinking or threatening revenge, strengthen ideological education, psychological counseling, humanistic care, and crisis intervention.

11. Comprehensive social security prevention and control: mainly use technical means to strengthen crime risk prevention, increase police patrols, improve the visibility of police officers and flashing police lights in public places, and deter potential criminal behavior.

12. Management of key industries and places: mainly strengthen the management of places like restaurants, night markets, dance halls, chess and card rooms, and small and medium-sized hotels that are prone to group fights and picking quarrels, and strictly control firearms, flammable and explosive materials, and highly toxic substances.

13. Comprehensive management of campus security: includes strengthening patrols around campuses, improving campus security facilities, strengthening the investigation of teacher-student disputes and dangerous articles such as controlled knives, and establishing systems to prevent campus violence and bullying.

14. Typical case warning education: use various law popularization methods to carry out legal education, increase legal assistance, and guide the public to develop the habit of resolving disputes and safeguarding rights through legal channels.

15. Social sentiment monitoring and psychological counseling services: provide psychological counseling and crisis intervention in a timely manner for special groups with prominent conflicts, dissatisfaction with life, imbalance of mindset, and abnormal behavior, and improve their ability to withstand frustration and adapt to the environment, preventing individual extreme violent crimes.

These measures, overall, do not have a so-called order of importance; every aspect is crucial, and the neglect of any one thing could lead to indulgence or even result in loss of life. However, for a mature society, there is a need to consider the cost of any action taken, even according to traditional Chinese thinking that “human life is paramount” and that protecting life is above all else. That does not mean, however, that there can be an endless pit of investment; in fact, it is impossible to achieve absolute safety. Sometimes, I feel that given the current level of economic and social development in China, the achievements in safety that have been made are already a miracle in the history of human development. Many countries at the same stage of economic and social development as China currently face numerous internal problems, and the incidence of homicides and various crimes is far higher than in China. Even in developed countries like the United States, the homicide rate is more than ten times higher than in China. It must be said that this so-called “beacon of human civilization” has its own dark humor.

Conclusion

According to Maslow’s classic hierarchy of needs theory, there are five levels of human needs, including survival, safety, social interaction, respect, and self-actualization. However, in thousands of years of Chinese philosophy, human needs are only divided into two categories: survival and development. In comparison, I believe that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs principle is too idealistic, as it has a clear flaw in real-world logic. That is, the relationship from the bottom to the top of the pyramid is not strictly progressive; even if one or two layers are removed from the middle of the pyramid, people can still achieve higher-level needs. For example, Einstein developed the theory of relativity during times of war, and even after achieving fame and success, he still had to worry about his safety. The same is true for the U.S. President and the Prime Minister of Japan; upon becoming the President or Prime Minister, they have already reached the pinnacle of self-realization, yet they still have to worry about assassination attempts. Similarly, during the turbulent times in China, many revolutionary predecessors and benevolent people achieved their highest ideals without any guarantee of survival or safety, and their deeds are forever remembered by future generations.

In the contemporary Chinese political discourse, survival and development have been upgraded to safety and development. One important factor is that China has historically resolved the issue of absolute poverty that has plagued the nation for thousands of years, and survival itself is a basic component of ensuring safety.

The logical relationship between safety and development is very clear: safety is the prerequisite and necessary condition for development, while development can promote the formation of a higher level of security pattern. The two complement each other, forming a spiral structure that continuously rises. Moreover, this logical relationship applies perfectly to the nation, society, and individuals alike. Therefore, better addressing the concerns for the life and safety of the people has become an inevitable choice for the country.

To conclude, I would like to quote a passage on safety from the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

We will advance the modernization of the national security system and capabilities, resolutely safeguard national security and social stability.

We must adhere to the principle of ensuring the safety of the people, with political security as the foundation, economic security as the basis, and the security of military, science and technology, culture, and society as the guarantee. We should also rely on promoting international security, coordinate external and internal security, homeland security and public security, traditional and non-traditional security, and our own security and common security. We need to plan for both maintaining and shaping national security, strengthen the grassroots foundation for national security and social stability, improve the mechanisms for participating in global security governance, and build a safer China at a higher level to ensure a new development pattern with a new security structure.

1. We will improve the national security system. We must uphold the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee over national security work and perfect an efficient and authoritative national security leadership system. We will strengthen the coordination mechanism for national security work, improve the legal, strategic, policy, risk monitoring and early warning systems, and the national emergency management system. We will enhance the security assurance systems in key areas and the important special coordination and command systems. We will also strengthen the construction of security systems in the fields of the economy, major infrastructure, finance, cyberspace, data, biology, resources, nuclear, space, and the oceans. We will establish mechanisms to counter sanctions, interference, and “long-arm jurisdiction.” We will improve the layout of national security forces and build a comprehensive, linked, three-dimensional, and efficient national security protection system.

2. We will enhance our ability to maintain national security. We will resolutely safeguard the security of national political power, systems, and ideology. We will strengthen the capacity for security in key areas to ensure the safety of food, energy resources, and critical industrial and supply chains. We will enhance the capacity for overseas security to protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and legal persons abroad, and to safeguard maritime rights and interests. We will resolutely defend national sovereignty, security, and development interests. We will improve our ability to prevent and resolve major risks, strictly guard against systemic security risks, and severely crack down on activities by hostile forces to infiltrate, destroy, subvert, and divide. We will comprehensively strengthen national security education, improve the ability of leaders at all levels to coordinate development and security, and enhance the national security awareness and culture of all people to build a strong line of defense for national security among the people.

3. We will improve the level of public safety governance. We will adhere to the principle of safety first and prevention as the main priority, establish a framework for comprehensive security and emergency response, improve the public safety system, and shift the model of public safety governance towards preventive measures. We will promote special rectification of safety production risks, strengthen safety supervision in key industries and areas, and improve the capacity for disaster prevention, mitigation, relief, and emergency response to major public incidents. We will strengthen the construction of national and regional emergency response capabilities. We will enhance the supervision and control of food and drug safety and establish a sound biosafety supervision, early warning, and prevention system. We will strengthen the protection of personal information.

4. We will improve the social governance system. We will establish a sound system of social governance characterized by joint construction, governance, and sharing, and enhance the effectiveness of social governance. At the grassroots level, we will adhere to and develop the “Fengqiao Experience” for the new era, improve the mechanisms for correctly handling internal contradictions among the people under new circumstances, and strengthen and improve the work of letters and visits from the public. We will facilitate and standardize the channels for expressing demands, coordinating interests, and protecting rights and interests, improve the grassroots governance platform supported by grid management, refined services, and informatization, and establish a sound urban and rural community governance system. We will resolve conflicts and disputes at the grassroots level and in their early stages. We will accelerate the modernization of city-based social governance and improve its capabilities. We will strengthen the overall prevention and control of public order and promote the normalization of efforts to combat and eliminate gangs and violence, and severely punish various crimes strongly felt by the public in accordance with the law. We will strengthen the forces for mass prevention and mass control, foster a social atmosphere where righteousness is rewarded, and build a community of social governance where everyone has a responsibility, everyone fulfills their duties, and everyone shares in the benefits.