Crime on Spring Festival in China

Crimes in Chinese Spring Festival

## Introduce

Chinese spring festival is one of the biggest traditional and cultural festivals for Chinese people. Chinese spring festival is celebrated
for 15 days, and it is important because of several traditional customs. The
festival starts with the Chinese New Year based on the lunar calendar. During
the festival season, millions of people travel home to celebrate the festival with their families. During the spring festival season, the railway tickets are
purchased at a rate of more than 1000 tickets per second. According to CNN,
holiday makers make around 2.5 billion trips by land, and 356 million by rail
(Shadbolt). During this time, the traffic jam on the highway is for more than 5
hours. And the whole city is filled with people to enjoy the celebrations.
However, during this busy season the crime rates and accidents double. Many
criminals try to take the leverage of busy streets and chaos. And they manage
to steal from people during rush hours, especially on trains and metros. On the
other hand, many people burn firecrackers, which are not safe, and lead to
accidents. The Chinese government should take suitable actions to lower the
crime rate and usage of firecrackers during the spring festival season.

## The reason of crime during Spring Festival

During the season of spring festival, Chinese people burst
firecrackers to celebrate. But, according to a report by financial times, China
is considered to be more corruptive than countries like Saudi Arabia (Binham).
There are millions of people doing illegal business in China. Due to strict
government laws, it is hard for a normal person, without contacts, to get a
license to produce firecrackers. Due to this reason, many illegal companies try
to produce fireworks. During the spring festival season, many people use
illegal and dangerous products in the firecrackers, illegally, to reduce the
cost of production. When a consumer goes to buy firecrackers, he/she tries to
buy a product of cheaper price with low quality. This leads to firework
accidents. And many people have been injured or suffered due to the low quality
illegal firecrackers. According to a report by China daily news, more than 203
pyrotechnic cases were reported ("China On Alert Against Firework
Crime"). 203 seem to be a small number, but these companies produce
firecrackers in large quantity. And the businesses of these firecrackers add up
to more than a $500 million. However, due to illegal production, general
population suffers. Many cases have been reported regarding this issue, and the
production of illegal fireworks has a negative influence on the people. People
are scared to follow the traditions because the firecrackers are not of good
quality. So, due to firework crimes, people are scared to buy firecrackers. And
if people do buy firecrackers, they choose to buy crackers that are cheap.
Because legal companies, which produce firecrackers, tend to sell it for a
premium price.

## The influence for people's life

 China is the most populated country in the world, and during the
spring season majority of the population use public transportation to go to
their hometowns. According to Qiang, “Every year after the Spring Festival,
farmers leave their homes to look for jobs in cities, which produce a vast
amount of railway traffic. Sometimes the overload rate reaches 100%. Some trains
are so overloaded that the compartments are damages and accidents become very
common.” (Qiang 102). More than 356 million people travel by rail during this
season, and the overload rate reaches 100%. When the trains are overloaded,
there are several accidents and crimes reported. Each year during the spring
festival season, there are 1000’s of crimes reported related to chain
snatching, mugging, or stealing valuables. When the trains are overpopulated,
the thieves tend to take the leverage of the overloaded trains and they steal
the valuables of people without them noticing.

Many people commute by car to go meet their families. The roads are
filled with traffic, and sometimes, the car doesn’t even move for 3 hours. And
the highways are so fast, that the people don’t notice traffic, which leads to
accidents and chaos. There were more than 20,000 accidents reported and more
than 50 people lost their lives due to these accidents ("Accident And
Crime Rate Down During Chinese New Year - The Rakyat Post"). During the
Chinese spring festival celebrations, most of the people drink alcohol with
their families. And eve, teenagers and friends drink during the daytime. The
driving laws are not strict in China, and due to this reason, many people also
drink and drive. Drinking and driving has been one of the biggest reasons of
car accidents during the season. Thousands of accidents are reported, and
people’s lives are put in danger due to high accidents rate during the spring
festival. Spring festival is considered to be the festival to celebrate
traditions with their family. But, instead, people do illegal activities and
break laws. Drinking and driving is considered dangerous because a person could
be intoxicated. And during the season of festival, people drink and drive which
is very unsafe for them and for the other cars on the streets.

## Government's action to fix

The government has taken several steps to ensure the safety of the
people. According to Trevaskes, there is a Strike Hard team, which targets
crime that is most prevalent (Trevaskes 88). The Strike Hard team ensures
public safety during the time of spring festival in Beijing (Trevaskes 88).
However, the government does not focus on small towns and areas where most of
the crimes happen. The rural areas of China are not given any protection, and
these are the people who buy illegal firecrackers for cheap price. The
government should take more steps to ensure the safety. First, the government
should have more cops on highways and streets to ensure the smooth flow of
traffic and lower cases of dinking and driving. On the other hand, the
government should ban all the illegal firecracker companies and they should
highly promote safety cracker or government approved. The government should
ensure that there should be no corruption and illegal companies should face
high fines or jail times. Lastly, the government should provide more safety for
the passengers who commute through public transport.  They need to overcome the problem of
overloaded trains. And there should be more officers in the train or public
transport stations to ensure that there are less thefts and stealing.

## Conclusion

Chinese spring festival is one biggest festival in
Chinese history. Many people tend to celebrate it, but the increased number of
crimes and accidents has led to a fear amongst the people. Millions of people
burst firecrackers but some companies produce firecrackers, which are dangerous
for people. These illegal companies and crimes are taking the tradition away.
People now tend to avoid meeting their families due to increased number of
accidents and crime.  The government
should take several steps to ensure the safe of people and also, to reduce the
crime rate during the spring festival season.

## Work Cited

"Accident And Crime Rate Down During Chinese New
Year - The Rakyat Post". *The Rakyat Post*. N.p., 2014. Web. 26 Apr.

Binham, Caroline. "China’S Ranking In Corruption Index Slips". *Ft.com*. N.p.,
2012. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.

"China On Alert Against Firework Crime". *Chinadaily.com.cn*. N.p., 2017. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.

Qiang, Li. *Social Stratification In Contemporary*
China*. Los Angeles: Bridge21 Publications, 2016. Print.*

Shadbolt, Peter. "[http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/12/travel/travel-china-chunyun/ When All Of China Goes On
Vacation At Once]". *CNN*. N.p., 2017. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.

Trevaskes, Susan. *Policing Serious Crime In China*. London [u.a.]: Routledge, 2013. Print.

## See also

Online shopping on Spring Festival

Pollution During Spring Festival

The Problems Of Population In Spring Festival