A Path to Standardizing Material Evidence Collection in Chinese Criminal Justice *

An analysis of detailed police dossiers and participant interviews in two urban districts reveals that, in the field of criminal justice in China, the process of collection, circulation, and disposal of material evidence has been highly problematic. Even though the process appears to adhere to a legal framework most of the time, its failures can be readily seen in the absence or violation of norms. For example, procedures have routinely been mixed together or invented; the use of warrants has been limited or avoided; the approval process has frequently been circumvented; the management of the criminal property has been slipshod. Exploring the structural contradictions of the evidence collection process and the behavior of police officers and their motivations can help clarify the factors that shape the process as it exists today, the presence or absence of norms that guide evidence collection behavior, and the mechanisms that govern the actual practices of evidence collection. The current dominant approach to reforms in this field is legal transplantation. However, this approach may fail to respond to local practices or may fail to take into account participants’ mentalities. In order to find norms that are suitable for China’s circumstances, future standardization reforms of material evidence collection should take both transplanted experience and actual operations into consideration.