Asian Journal of Criminology最新文献

The wrongful conviction of Cui Ning is a famous short novel first recorded in the Song dynasty. It tells of a story about the wrongful conviction and execution of two innocent people, Cui Ning and madam Chen. In this study, we pay particular attention to systemic failures that led to the miscarriage of justice in this case, including presumption of guilt, use of torture, improper influence of public opinion, lack of effective defense rights and appeal procedures, and lack of checks and balances within the criminal justice system. We further examine continuation of these systemic failures in four contemporary wrongful conviction cases including Teng Xingshan (1987), She Xianglin (1994), Nie Shubin (1995), and Huugjilt (1996). The continuation of these systemic failures provides important lessons to China’s contemporary criminal justice system.

Abstract 

Community-based treatment has long been a major component of the criminal justice system in most Western jurisdictions; however, this is not the case in China. Based on a review of academic journal articles and legal documents, this paper highlights the evolution of community correction programs for juvenile offenders in China. Reflecting on its development over the past two decades, the existing community correction programs in China are not restorative in facilitating an offender’s effective reintegration into the community. This paper aims to address the existing gap by examining the historical roots and characteristics of Chinese juvenile community corrections and analyzing how restorative justice can be incorporated into the youth rehabilitation system. In this regard, this paper advocates for a restorative juvenile community correction model that motivates social capital and actively engages all concerned parties in meeting various correctional goals of victim reparation, accountability taking, capacity building, and maintaining community safety. With the momentum of the recent criminal justice reform alongside the continued open-door policy in China, it is hoped that the Chinese government may be more willing to include restorative ideas for offender reintegration in the future. With more frequent applications of restorative justice, we are confident that effective intervention models could be put into practice in the years to come.

This article examines the use of mediation as a police technique in China. Our focus is the “Fengqiao Model” (Fengqiao Jingyan) reforms presently being implemented through the new Social Governance Scheme. Based on 1 year of ethnographic participant-observation, we propose that the overarching practical goal of contemporary Fengqiao Model mediation conferences is to engineer a “good faith/sincere” (chengyi) reconciliation on the part of individual participants in a manner that consolidates the overall hegemony of the market order. To evaluate the substantive qualities of justice generated by this marketized mode of production, we focus on the way it uses techniques of psychic coercion to foreclose non-marketized avenues to political justice. This evidences an illiberal ideal of legitimate force which, we argue, renders these practices inconsistent with ideal–typical definitions of “restorative justice” predicated on a liberal ideal of mediation as a space of free expression. This is a technology of mediation designed to produce revolutionary rather than restorative justice. We further substantiate our argument by locating contemporary practices in the broader history of policing in the PRC, focusing on the enduring significance of “emotion work” as a canonically illiberal technology forged in the context of Mass Line administration. Where Mao-era Fengqiao Model policing utilized reintegrative shaming to deal with political contradictions among the people, Market era Fengqiao Model policing repairs grass root conflict through a mode of producing depoliticized “good faith/sincerity” within the terms of the cash nexus, repurposing revolutionary techniques to uphold a market order.

Rarely has any study examined the regulatory structure of drug treatment in China from the perspective of the regulated actors (i.e., illicit drug users). This study, based on interviews with 36 drug users placed in compulsory drug treatment centers, aims to understand their experiences with the whole treatment regime. Their views of the multiple tools and strategies adopted by regulators are explored. The findings are presented and discussed in relation to the “regulatory pyramid” developed in the Western context, which advocates maximal use of restorative justice and minimal sufficiency in imposing deterrence. They show that China’s current state-centered regulatory practice in drug treatment lacks both a restorative base and regulatory deterrence, rendering escalation in the pyramid inevitable. Implications for theory and practice are offered with regard to enhancing compliance in the current regulatory context of China.

Abstract

Abstract 

While there have been abundant studies on restorative justice (RJ) in China and across the globe, research has paid scant attention to the increasing incorporation of RJ into the framework of Chinese environmental criminal justice (ECJ) and its mounting prominence in handling ECJ cases. To broaden our understanding of RJ in China, this study empirically examines the forms, functions, and foundations of RJ ideals and practices manifested in contemporary Chinese legal responses to environmental crime. Drawing on various sources of qualitative data, we find that RJ in ECJ uses a state-led-and-coordinated network of community organizations and residents (including groups of environmental victims) to account for victim welfare, offenders’ new responsibilization, and public engagement. Furthermore, we argue, as a peculiar form of law’s responsiveness in the wake of China’s swift transition to modernity, RJ in Chinese ECJ works to reinforce the declining legitimacy of the authoritarian state and enhance decreasing trust in the state’s ability to govern. Implications for better understanding and implementing RJ within the ECJ field are also presented and discussed.