The People’s Procuratorate of Hohhot -- the capital of North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region -- issued a document called the White Paper on Minor Prosecution Work of the Procuratorate of Hohhot on May 29, according to local media reports.

The white paper analyzes the basic situation regarding crimes against minors and juvenile crimes generally, as well as the measures taken for judicial assistance and education and rescues by the procuratorial offices of the city, from 2017 to May 2020.

Officials said the white paper showed that since 2017, the procuratorial offices on two levels in Hohhot handled a total of 210 cases involving crimes against minors -- and that the number of crimes against minors had increased year by year.

Of the total cases, 58 were criminal cases involving 87 people prosecuted in 2017, 61 cases involved 106 people in 2018 and 68 cases involved 117 people last year.

Officials said analysis of the white paper showed that the types of crimes against minors mainly included property-embezzling, sexual assault and violent crime.

Of these crimes, theft of belongings accounted for 26.2 percent, crimes of a sexual nature for 38.1 percent and violent crimes accounted for 10 percent. Among sexual assault cases involving minors, 76 percent were committed by non-acquaintances and 24 percent were committed by acquaintances.

According to statistics, since 2017 the procuratorial offices in Hohhot have handled 153 criminal cases involving 307 arrests, accounting for 3 percent of all criminal cases under review.

The offices accepted, reviewed and prosecuted 366 criminal cases committed by minors, accounting for 2.3 percent of all accepted and prosecuted criminal cases.

The white paper showed that the proportion of male criminal suspects was relatively high and the proportion of criminal suspects under 16-17 years old was relatively large.

The educational level of underage criminal suspects was generally not high, with 55 percent having only junior high school education, while 30 percent were students at school.

According to officials from the People’s Procuratorate of Hohhot, the procuratorial offices in the city severely punish crimes against minors according to the law.

They insist on strictly reviewing and approving arrests and prosecuting crimes against minors and taking various measures to help minor victims.

The offices also implemented a special prosecution system for minors and strengthen mechanism to help and offer education to minors.