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Exploring the Bottom-Up Reform of Sex Offender Registration in China: Carceral Feminism and Populist Authoritarianism

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Abstract

In 2017, the Minhang District of Shanghai introduced sex offender registration. This reform attracted positive reactions on social media. Local governments in Jiangsu, Guangdong and Chongqing quickly followed the precedent. In 2019, the central government announced that it will establish national sex offender registries by 2022, although it limited the scope of registration to paedophiles. This study explores how this bottom-up reform unfolded and what implications it has in theory and practice. Based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of 2261 posts on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, this study reveals two major players in the current reform: the Chinese feminists who are pursuing a punitive agenda online (a phenomenon known as ‘carceral feminism’), and the local governments that are eager to win the public’s trust, although such trust is mainly reserved for the central authority in the Chinese political culture (a culture known as ‘populist authoritarianism’). Drawing on the findings, this study pushes the discussion about Chinese penal policy beyond the dichotomy of ‘penal professionalism’ and ‘penal populism’. It argues that while the influence of professionalism is evident in central-level policy making, local penal policies can be easily led by populist punitiveness. The latter deserves more academic attention. This study also takes a non-partisan approach to the feminist movements on Chinese social media. It reveals the class conflicts and regional inequality underlying the gender schism. The polarisation effect in online discussion is also highlighted, which alerts policy makers to the reliability of ‘public opinion’ online. (246 words).

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Notes

  1. People’s Procuratorates are the prosecution authorities in China.

  2. Article 236 of the 1997 Criminal Code of China. The crime carries a punishment of three to ten years’ imprisonment. If aggravating circumstances are present, the punishment can increase to life imprisonment or death.

  3. Article 237, ibid. The crime carries a punishment of up to five years’ imprisonment.

  4. Article 358, ibid. The crime carries a punishment of five to ten years’ imprisonment.

  5. ‘Child-related organisations’ include but are not limited to schools, nurseries, libraries, private tutoring institutions, sports centres and other places of entertainment. In the local governance of China, schools and nurseries (both private and public) are supervised by the Bureau of Education (jiaoyu ju). Sports centres and other similar facilities are usually overseen by the Bureau of Sports (tiyu ju) and the Bureau of Culture (wenhua jue).

  6. As teachers or in other roles such as cleaners, drivers and security guards.

  7. One might be cautious with these statistics, as it is well known that the reported number of sexual offences might not mirror the number of crimes happened in real life. However, without further proof, the author cannot disregard the existing statistics.

  8. By legalising the expansion of state coercion and by taking away the empathetic and tolerant elements from social culture, for example.

  9. In fact, it is not. But the earlier attempt in Cixi is not well known.

  10. Unlike Twitter, Weibo does not limit a post to 280 characters.

  11. Major economic centres here refer to municipalities that have an annual GDP of 900 billion yuan or above. According to the China National Bureau of Statistics, in 2017, 17 cities reached this threshold: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Tianjin, Suzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Qingdao, Wuxi, Changsha, Ningbo, Foshan, and Zhengzhou.

  12. Unless otherwise stated, words in the brackets are added by the author.

  13. Three families refer to the nuclear family (child and his or her parents), and the families of grandparents. Blogger 760 made this comment because in China grandparents are often involved in the upbringing of their grandchildren.

  14. An underdeveloped, interior province in China. It has the third lowest GDP per capital in China in 2019.

  15. A small, underdeveloped in-land city in Central China.

  16. A small, underdeveloped city in Southwest China.

  17. An economic centre in the Southern coastal region.

  18. Henan is a relatively underdeveloped interior province in China.

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  1. Hertfordshire Law School, University of Hertfordshire, R Block, De Havilland Campus, Hatfield, AL10 9EU, UK

    Qi Chen

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Chen, Q. Exploring the Bottom-Up Reform of Sex Offender Registration in China: Carceral Feminism and Populist Authoritarianism. Crime Law Soc Change 74, 273–295 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-020-09897-z

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