China's public administration should be humanistic and strictly follow the law while highlighting its service function, a senior official said during his recent visit to political and legislative units at the grassroots level.
  
Luo Gan, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made this remark when visiting southwest China's Sichuan Province to inspect on how a nationwide campaign is being implemented to promote fairness among law-enforcement units at various levels launched two months ago.
  
Luo, also secretary of the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee of the CPC Central Committee, said that Chinese policies toward criminals should be balanced wisely between tolerance and firmness.
  
"China should go on cracking down on serious cases while it educates, persuades and redeems those misdemeanors," acknowledged Luo.
  
"Our work should arouse the people to fight against criminals in order to safeguard social stability," he said.
  
On Monday, Vice-Minister of Justice Fan Fangping said that Chinese prisons will be designed and classified into three categories: maximum security, medium security and minimum security, in a bid to guarantee perpetrators of felonies and misdemeanors are all properly incarcerated and to facilitate family visits.
  
He said that in the process of moving China's prisons from outlying, mountainous areas to city suburbs, 670 prisons and jails will be classified by security levels.
  
"We should always put the interests of the people first and solve their problems from the origin, to help materializing a harmonious society with the people's support," Luo Gan said. 

(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2005)