A total of 50 police stations in Beijing have been blacklisted by the Municipal Bureau of Public Security due to the high crime rate in their areas.

A new system to monitor the stations came into force yesterday.

Chaoyang and Haidian districts have the largest number of blacklisted police stations among the 18 districts and counties in the capital.

Each of the two districts has seven police stations on the list.

The crime rate in areas covered by the Dongsheng and Qinghe police stations, in Haidian District, was the highest among all the city's 400 police stations. Dongsheng police station also reported the highest burglary rate.

Pingfang police station in Chaoyang District witnessed the highest number of robbery cases, and Shibalidian police station in the same district had the most car thefts.

The bureau urged the police stations to improve before the end of June. Otherwise, they will be warned and will be criticized, Beijing News reported.

Statistics of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Public Security show that burglaries and motor vehicle theft cases saw a 20 per cent increase in the first quarter of this year.

Sources said that police officers not being used efficiently was one of the main reasons for the high crime rate, the Beijing News reported.

An investigation conducted by the municipal bureau of public security into 286 burglaries in March showed that 55 per cent of cases happened in areas where there was no community police officers.

The result was echoed by Zhang Liang, a Beijing resident living in Huilongguan.

The police station at Huilongguan, which oversees one of the biggest housing areas in Beijing, was on the blacklist.

"I seldom see police officers in my residential area," he said yesterday.

(China Daily April 5, 2005)