On the Road to the Rule of Law: Crime, Crime Control, and Public Opinion in China

Since 1978, the Chinese reform policy has brought fast economic developments and social change but also considerably higher crime levels. China’s rapid modernization has resulted in a situation of increased opportunities and Durkheimian anomie. The Chinese government responds to the worsening crime...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal on criminal policy and research 2009-06, Vol.15 (1-2), p.137-157
Main Authors: Qi, Shenghui, Oberwittler, Dietrich
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Capital punishment
China
China (People's Republic)
Crime
Crime prevention
Criminal justice
Criminal Justice Policy
Criminal law
Criminal procedure
Criminal statistics
Criminology and Criminal Justice
Deterrence
Economic growth
Economic reform
Experiments
GDP
Government Policy
Gross Domestic Product
Ideology
Law
Law and Criminology
Materialism
Modernization
Peoples Republic of China
Political Science
Population
Public opinion
Punishment
Reforms
Rule of law
Social change
Social conditions & trends
Social control
Social policy
Society
Studies
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Summary:Since 1978, the Chinese reform policy has brought fast economic developments and social change but also considerably higher crime levels. China’s rapid modernization has resulted in a situation of increased opportunities and Durkheimian anomie. The Chinese government responds to the worsening crime situation with punitive criminal sanctions, especially under the ‘strike hard’ policy. However, a punitive crime control ideology and repressive criminal norms are neither effective in stopping the crime wave nor in compliance with the aim to establish the rule of law. After examining the negative effects the strike hard policy has brought to the Chinese criminal justice, we present findings from a recent web survey among Chinese students in Germany (N=ca. 900). We use these data to explore the punitive attitudes, esp. towards the death penalty, among the Chinese young elite.
ISSN:0928-1371
1572-9869
DOI:10.1007/s10610-008-9094-3