BEIJING, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- A total of 700,000 people in China are currently serving community-based correction sentences, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) said Monday.

Since the introduction of the system's pilot program in 2003, about 3.5 million people had undergone community corrections, with a recidivism rate of about 0.2 percent, according to Jiang Aidong, head of the community correction administration under the MOJ.

Jiang called for the use of fine traditional Chinese culture in educating the offenders and mobilization of social resources.

More innovations are needed in improving the content and methods of community corrections, said Jiang.