There was a slight fall in the number of people arrested and the volume of public prosecutions last year but a spike "duty crimes" involving such things as bribery and corruption.

Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate disclosed the information during its annual review.

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The procuratorate said it issued warrants for 20,894 arrests and indicted 26,485 people during 2010. The number of arrests was 6.2 percent less than the previous year. Indictments fell by 3.3 percent.

The authority also refused to issue 1,791 arrest warrants and chose not to prosecute 456 people. The conviction rate in cases that were prosecuted was 99.9 percent.

"Duty crimes were seen to have increased," said Mu Ping, chief procuratorate with the authority. Mu was speaking at the meeting that involved more than 100 procurators from 16 districts and counties as well as municipal branches.

The delegates heard that 418 people were investigated in 356 cases involving corruption and bribery. That was a year-on-year increase of 11.6 percent and 13.3 percent respectively. The prosecution of those offenders recovered 150 million yuan.

Among the bribery and corruption cases, 57 involved sums larger than 1 million yuan, which was almost double the number of million-yuan cases last year.

In addition, the municipal procuratorate investigated 66 offenders in 57 cases of dereliction and infringement, an increase of 18.8 percent and 13.2 percent respectively.

The realms of urban development and rural elections were responsible for most of the past year's duty crimes.

"The city has seen great development in recent years and more than 50 villages were redeveloped last year. Crimes were frequently found in bidding and many people cheated the government out of compensation through conspiracies between demolition companies and property owners," said Wang Xiangming, director of the duty crime prevention branch under the municipal procuratorate.

"2010 was the end of the terms of rural leaders and secretaries, which meant rural areas became another area for duty crimes in addition to the removal and demolition field."

The municipal procuratorate will look to prevent duty crime in engineering and railway construction and the rebuilding of villages, the meeting heard.

"Beijing has entered into a phase of great development and large amounts of money will be invested in engineering construction this year," Wang said.

"The government's determination to ease the traffic gridlock will bring about more railway construction, which suggests the potential for corruption."

The procurators will receive professional training this year from university professors and experts in other government departments to help with their work.

Mu said the municipal procuratorate will crack down on crimes in the financial and securities sectors and urban development.

Chief procuratorates from 14 districts and two counties exchanged their views on local cases during a session as well as their ideas on the focus for work in the new year.

Chaoyang district saw its number of cases decline for the first time while land development and village demolition became the district's main source of duty crimes.

Wang Li, chief prosecutor with Chaoyang procuratorate, said some demolition companies had cheated villagers and local governments.

In one case, Wang said, a company promised villagers more compensation than they got in order to get a demolition project. They then threatened the local government with mass disturbances in order to get more investment for land development.

"About 220 million yuan was defrauded and many village heads and secretaries involved with issuing fake certificates were arrested," Wang said.

Also at the meeting, Haidian district procuratorate said it will set up an intellectual property rights protection mechanism.

For Shunyi district, it will keep a tight watch on the misappropriation of State property this year because the local government's key work is involved with land development and the mass removal of people and the demolition of villages.