Party committee reveals plans to end conviction, arrest rate targets

The Communist Party’s Political and Legal Committee announced on Wednesday that it would end the use by law enforcement authorities and its own units of targets for “criminal detention, arrests, prosecutions, convictions, settlements and other unreasonable targets for assessment”, Reuters reported, citing state media. Convictions are practically guaranteed in the mainland’s party controlled courts, and last year the Supreme People’s Court said China had a 99.% conviction rate. The party will also explore the possibility of a program for a leniency system in criminal proceedings for defendants who do plead guilty, according to a Xinhua report.