and party spokesmen. It is apparent that certain types of
crime are considered to be adequately under control and occur
infrequently enough to be statistically tolerable. There are, for
example, few trials in the political category, such as those where
dissidents are accused of attempting to undermine the authority of the
regime or to subvert the population from the approved ideology. In an
exceptional case (apparently at least his second serious offense) an
engineer found guilty of passing economic information to a foreigner
received a twenty-five-year sentence in March 1971 for espionage.
Similar trials were a frequent occurrence during the early 1950s, but
much of the publicity they have received since the mid-1960s has
occurred because they have become so infrequent as to be noteworthy.

Furthermore, to emphasize the more moderate and strictly legal
procedures adhered to by police forces and the judiciary, some of the
1950 political trials are being reexamined. Most of those sentenced to
imprisonment from such trials have been amnestied, the largest group in
1964. A few of those who were executed are still being posthumously
rehabilitated.

On the other hand, there is a greater percentage of crimes in the
categories that are sometimes attributed to an improvement in the
standard of living but that reflect dissatisfaction with the rate of the
improvement. These include economic crimes--theft and embezzlement--misuse
or abuse of property, and antisocial crimes and crimes of violence, which
are committed most frequently by younger people. Party officials also
deplore the prevalence of laxity in the use of state property and in the
safeguarding of official information and documents.

Measures taken to combat crime have had varying degrees of success.
Speculation is illegal, but efforts to prevent private sales of new and
used cars at excessive profit have been ineffective. Cars two to five
years old sell for more than their original cost. Crimes such as
vagrancy, begging, and prostitution were, as of late 1970, defying the
best efforts of the militia and the courts. This type of crime had been
prevalent during the early post-World War II period but declined after
about 1950. During the late 1960s it again began to increase. The
militia has also encountered a problem in the amount of popular
cooperation it is able to count upon. Individuals who have identified
persons as having committed criminal acts have been subjec