BEIJING - More than 730,000 people in China are serving sentences in community-based correction systems, vice minister of Justice Zhang Sujun said Wednesday.

Zhang told reporters at a press conference that since the system's pilot program in 2003, a total of 2.11 million people served their sentences in communities, with a recidivism rate lower than 0.2 percent.

The community-based correction system helps maintain normal life for the sentenced and is conducive to social stability, producing good legal and social effects, Zhang added.