Punishment in Contemporary China

Punishment in Contemporary China has experienced dramatic shifts over the last seven decades or so. This book focuses on the evolution, development, and change of punishment in the Maoist (1949-1977), reform (1978-2001), and post-reform eras (2002-) of China to understand the shaping and transformation of punishment within the context of a range of socio-cultural changes across different historical periods.

It aims to fill the gap in existing research by developing a distinctive theoretical framework for China’s penality, exploring it as a separate and complex legal-social system. The book observes the impact social foundations, political-economic genesis, cultural significance, and meanings have exerted on penal form, discourse, and force in contemporary China. It sheds light on the sociology of punishment in this socialist Party-state by investigating law reform, penal policy, social control, crime prevention, and sentencing as interconnected elements in the criminal justice and penal system.

This book will be of great interest to those who study Chinese criminal law, penal and policing systems, as well as to law academics, criminologists, and sociologists whose research interests lie in the fields of comparative criminology and criminal justice.