Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Rehabilitation in a Risk Society: ‘The Case of China’

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Handbook of Global Rehabilitation in Criminal Justice

Abstract

For the past seven decades, China has adopted a correctional system in which rehabilitation is promoted hand in hand with punishment and discipline. Driven by the conventional belief that everyone is capable of being reformed, Chinese rehabilitation programmes are devised to remould one’s mind and behaviour through education, labour, and vocational training. However, growing evidence shows that the reformation ideal has been heavily undermined by the State’s recent preoccupation with surveillance and risk control. In both traditional and new penal measures, risk identification, assessment, and minimisation have morphed into a dominant pattern of managing convicted wrongdoers. Any future reform efforts will then have to address an imperative question of how to reconcile rehabilitation and risk control in penal measures at both legislative and practical level.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 189.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Andrews, D. A., & Bonta, J. (2006). The psychology of criminal conduct (4th edn.). LexisNexis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andrews, D. A., Bonta, J., & Hoge, R. D. (1990). Classification for effective rehabilitation: Rediscovering psychology. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 17(1), 19–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ashworth, A., & Zedner, L. (2014). Preventive justice. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biddulph, S. (2007). Legal reform and administrative detention powers in China. Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biddulph, S., Nesossi, E., Sapio, F., & Trevaskes, S. (2017). Detention and its reforms in the PRC. China Law and Society Review, 2(1), 1–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cao, L., & Cullen, F. (2001). Thinking about crime and control: A comparative study of Chinese and western ideology. International Criminal Justice Review, 11(1), 58–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curran, D. (1998). Economic reform, the floating population, the crime in the transformation. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 13(3), 262–280.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feeley, M., & Jonathan, S. (1992). The new penology: Notes on the emerging strategy of corrections and its implications. Criminology, 30(4), 449–474.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fyfield, J. (1982). Re-educating Chinese anti-communists. Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harcourt, B. (2012). Punitive preventive justice: A critique. In A. Ashworth, L. Zedner, & P Tomlin (Eds.), Prevention and the limits of the criminal law. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • He, R. (2015). The critical analysis of the jurisprudence of overcriminalisation in social governance (社会治理过度刑法化的法哲学批判). Peking University Law Journal (中外法学), 2, 523–547.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jiang, J. (2016). Criminal reconciliation in contemporary China: An empirical and analytical enquiry. Edward Elgar Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jiang, J., & Liu, J. (2022). Penal welfare or penal sovereignty? A political sociology of recent formalization of Chinese community corrections. Punishment and Society, 24(4), 501–528.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jiang, S. H., Xiang, D. P., Chen, Q., Huang, C. X., Yang, S. Y., Zhang, D. W., & Zhao, A. (2014). Community corrections in china: Development and challenges. The Prison Journal, 94(1), 75–96.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jiang, S., Jin, X., Xiang, D., Goodlin-Fahncke, W., Yang, S., Xu, N., & Zhang, D. (2016). Punitive and rehabilitative orientations toward offenders among community corrections officers in China. The Prison Journal, 96(6), 771–792.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lambert, E., Liu, J., & Jiang, S. (2018). An exploratory study of organizational justice and work attitudes among Chinese prison staff. The Prison Journal, 98(3), 314–333.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leng, S., & Chiu, H. (1985). Criminal justice in post-Mao China: Analysis and documents. State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, E. (2012). Between reality and idea: Is the socialization of chinese administrative offenders realizable? Asian-Pacific Law and Policy Journal, 13(2), 164–209.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, E. (2015). Chinas community corrections: An actuarial model of punishment. Crime, Law and Social Change, 64(1), 1–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, E. (2017). The rhetoric and practice of community corrections in China. Asian Journal of Criminology, 12(2), 1–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, E. (2018). Punishment in contemporary China: Its evolution, development and change. Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, E. (2020). In the name of prevention? Policing social dangerousness through arrest in China. Social and Legal Studies, 30(4), 581–604.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, L. (2014). High rates of prosecution and conviction in China: The use of passive coping strategies. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, 42(3), 271–285.

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, E., & Su, M. (2020). From punishment to control: Assessing juvenile diversion in China. Law and Social Inquiry, 45(2), 372–397.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu, L., & Chui, W. H. (2018a). Chinese culture and its influence on female prisoner behavior in the prisoner–guard relationship. Journal of Criminology, 51(1), 117–134.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu, L., & Chui, W.H. (2018b). Rehabilitation policy for dug addicted offenders in China: Current trends, patterns, and practice implications. Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development, 28(3), 192–204.

    Google Scholar 

  • Liu, L., Chui, W. H., & Hu, Y. (2020). Make sense of self in prison work: Stigma, agency, and temporality in a Chinese women’s prison, Asian. Journal of Criminology, 15(2), 123–139.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lu, J. (2022). The strategy for crime control in the era of misdemeanours (轻罪时代的犯罪治理方略). Politics and Law (政治与法律), 1, 51–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mühlhahn, K. (2009). Criminal justice in China. Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaw, V. (1998). Productive labour and thought reform in Chinese corrections: A historical and comparative analysis. The Prison Journal, 78(2), 186–211.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaw, V. (2010). Corrections and punishment in China: Information and analysis. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 26(1), 53–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, A. (2012). Thought reform and Chinas dangerous classes: Reeducation, resistance, and the people. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Supreme People’s Procuratorate. (2021). The Annual Work Report, viewed on 10 November 2021. https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/gzbg/202103/t20210315_512731.shtml

  • Trevaskes, S. (2007). Severe and swift justice in China. British Journal of Criminology, 47(1), 23–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trevaskes, S. (2010). The shifting sands of punishment in China in the era of harmonious society. Law and Policy, 32(3), 332–361.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang, C. (2019). The empirical study of the correctional model and effectiveness of Chinese prisons – Based on 163 correctional cases collected from the Chinese legal service website (我国监狱罪犯矫治模式及效能问题实证研究——以163例12348中国法网监狱矫治个案为例分析). Policing Study (警学研究), 6, 31–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ward, T., Melser, J., & Yates, P. (2007). Reconstructing the risk–need–responsivity model: A theoretical elaboration and evaluation. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 12(2), 208–228.

    Google Scholar 

  • World Prison Brief. (2018). The prison population in China, viewed on 17 November 2021. https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/china

  • Wu, W., & Vander Beken, T. (2018). Understanding criminal punishment and prison in China. The Prison Journal, 98(6), 700–721.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yang, X. (2017). Community corrections programs in China: New forms of informal punishments? Asian-Pacific Law and Policy Journal, 19(1), 49–109.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yuan, X. (2019a). Risk, risk assessment, and community corrections in China. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 63(14), 2466–2482.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yuan, X. (2019b). Controlling illicit drug users in China: From incarceration to community? Journal of Criminology, 52(4), 483–498.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, A. (2020a). Chinese practice of foucault’s disciplinary power and its effects on the rehabilitation of female prisoners in China. British Journal of Criminology, 60(3), 662–680.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, A. (2022). The failure of Ganhua education: Revisiting relational-cultural theory in Chinas female prisons. Woman and Criminal Justice. https://doi.org/10.1080/08974454.2022.2040694

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, J. (2020b). The legislative connotations of community corrections law and its difficulty for implementation (社区矫正法》的立法意义与执法难点). Chinese Criminology Review (犯罪研究), 4, 6–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, Y., & Xia, Y. (2021). Can restorative justice reduce incarceration? A story from China. Justice Quarterly, 38(7), 1471–1491.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, L., Zhou, D., Messner, S., Liska, A., Krohn, M., Liu, J., & Lu, Z. (1996). Crime prevention in a communitarian society: Bang-jiao and Tiao-jie in the peoples community corrections in China: Development and challenges. Justice Quarterly, 13(2), 199–222.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhao, Y., Fessner, S., Liu, J., & Jin, C. (2019). Prisons as schools: Inmate’s participation in vocational and academic programs in Chinese prisons. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 63(15–16), 2713–2740.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhou, J. (1991). The Chinese correctional system and Its development. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 15(1–2), 15–32.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia

    Enshen Li

Authors
  1. Enshen Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Enshen Li .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Criminology, School of Law, Swansea University, Swansea, UK

    Maurice Vanstone

  2. Wells, UK

    Philip Priestley

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Li, E. (2022). Rehabilitation in a Risk Society: ‘The Case of China’. In: Vanstone, M., Priestley, P. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Rehabilitation in Criminal Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14375-5_6

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation