Search

With a comparative lens, this article explores the trajectory of women's advancement in policing in China and the United States (US), two major countries, one in the Global South and the other in the Northern part of the world. The article describes the rich history of women police in the US and China and compares the development of women policing in these two jurisdictions, which are sharply contrasting in many respects. Starting from the model of women's stage-by-stage integration into policing developed in the Northern contexts, we examine women's evolution in police and their local conditions in the two systems. Framed in Southern Criminology and Southern Theory, we conclude that the US model of sexual integration does not apply to China, where traditional cultural norms continue to reinforce women's gendered roles in policing. More generally, the progress of women is unlikely, nor necessary, to share the same trajectory everywhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on wine counterfeiting and the policing of fake wines in mainland China. Relying on rich data drawn from published materials and open sources, it discusses three important themes in relation to product counterfeiting: the definitional issue; the scope, scale and organisation of the counterfeiting business; and law enforcement against product piracy. The aim is to broaden our knowledge about the counterfeiting trade, to develop a clear understanding of the illegitimate market, and to help to renew countermeasures that not only enable the exercising of tighter control over the counterfeiting industry but also disrupt the illegal behaviours of counterfeiters. Rather than place emphasis on the protection of intellectual property rights, this article stresses public health concerns with regard to dangerous counterfeit goods such as fake wines. Examining wine counterfeiting within the existing analytical framework of organised crime research, this article contributes to analysis of the nature of product counterfeiting and the issue of policing counterfeit goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The illegal trade in alcohol has been an empirical manifestation of organised crime with a very long history; yet, the nature of the illegal trade in alcohol has received relatively limited academic attention in recent years despite the fact that it has been linked with significant tax evasion as well as serious health problems and even deaths. The current article focuses on a specific type associated with the illegal trade in alcohol, the counterfeiting of alcohol in China. The article pays particular attention to the counterfeiting of baijiu - Chinese liquor - in mainland China. The aim of the article is to offer an account of the social organisation of the alcohol counterfeiting business in China by illustrating the counterfeiting process, the actors in the business as well as its possible embeddedness in legal practices, trades and industries. The alcohol counterfeiting business is highly reflective to the market demand and consumer needs. Alcohol counterfeiting in China is characterised primarily by independent actors many of whom are subcontracted to provide commodities and services about the counterfeiting process. The business relies on personal networks - family and extended family members, friends and acquaintances. Relationships between actors in the business are very often based on a customer-supplier relationship or a 'business-to-business market'. The alcohol counterfeiting business in China highlights the symbiotic relationship between illegal and legal businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite governmental and cultural differences, many jurisdictions are experiencing common tensions between care and control within juvenile justice. The study–work school is an early intervention measure in China aiming at child protection and crime prevention. Relying on empirical data, this article seeks to explore some characteristics of the study–work school, the role it plays and the challenges facing it. It is hoped that the findings here will inform local policy and practice, make contributions to the increasing international body of literature on comparative juvenile justice studies and help a better understanding of the implementation of global policy in local settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses women’s involvement in sex work management – an offence defined under section 358 of the 1997 Chinese Criminal Law and one of the re-emerged areas of illegality following the economic reforms since 1978. It first provides the historical context, legislative background and relevant sections of the Chinese vice laws so as to help make sense of the data obtained. Then it discusses the methodological issues before presenting the empirical findings to explore the socio-demographic profile of the incarcerated female sex work organizers who participated in this study and their motivations for organizing others for prostitution. Based on empirical data, this article explores the impact of social conditions on female offenders in China’s reform era and also the effects of the anti-prostitution policy in the country. Moreover, through a Chinese case study, it makes contributions to broader scholarship on the sex trade regulation. It concludes with a couple of implications for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the 1970s onwards, women’s participation in gangs in the mainstream Western social contexts has been increasingly researched. However, the experiences of women in other cultural settings are rarely discussed. This qualitative study focuses on female members of the black-society style criminal organizations (BSSCO) in China. It starts with reviewing literature on female gang membership and on BSSCO so as to locate its discussions in the international criminological framework. This is followed by a methodology section, and then it analyses the empirical findings. This article seeks to provide some theoretical insights into the construction of female criminal membership in broader social contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contextualises the pattern and nature of youth offending in contemporary China and explores the philosophical bases, policy and practices of Chinese youth justice. It concludes that in many important ways youth offending in China echoes that of the Western industrialised countries, despite China's unique environments. Chinese youth justice does not differ formally from that of the Western nations. The challenges posed in understanding and tackling youth offending in China today demand the suspension of assumptions, a move beyond simplistic forms of cultural pluralism and the extension of sophisticated criminological research and theorisation into specific aspects of the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the neoliberal West, while the growing awareness of women’s crimes in academic criminology has greatly extended our knowledge and understanding of the relation between women and crime, the growing visibility of female crime in popular culture brings with it a set of distinct problems that relate to the common misrepresentation of the actuality of female crime. In this article, we question whether similar trends can be identified elsewhere. We seek to address this question by focusing on female offending in China since the 1980s. Following a partial and preliminary account of female offending in this vast country, our attempt is to make some meaningful comparison and also to identify one or two key theories that might enable us to better understand the increased visibility of female offending in this non-“Western” country – one destined to play a much more active role in global culture and politics as the twenty-first century unfolds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article pays attention to privacy issues in policing activities. It begins with two privacy related incidents involving the police - one in China and the other in the UK. It then compares different social and legal contexts in the two systems in order to explain the differences as regards privacy concerns in policing. It focuses on the underlying historical, socio-cultural and ideological factors and legal settings. It argues that there is no universal norm of privacy and privacy must be examined in particular cultural and legal settings. Both China and the UK recognize legal protection of privacy, but the law in neither system is complete. Both jurisdictions recognize the balance between privacy interests and other equally important social interests and rights, but what constitutes the right balance is constructed differently, and neither system is perfect in striking that balance. Finally, it advocates the importance of comparative socio-legal research between different cultural and legal systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the history of the illegal production, distribution, and smuggling of cigarettes in mainland China. Data were obtained from a content analysis of 931 media reports retrieved from LexisNexis for the time period 1975 until 2010, and from other open sources. The illegal cigarette trade first emerged in the form of violations of state tobacco monopoly regulations. In the course of the restructuring of the legal tobacco sector, which occurred under external political pressure to open the Chinese market to foreign competition, an illegal cigarette industry emerged which at first primarily produced fake Chinese brand cigarettes for the domestic black market. At the same time, China became a destination country for smuggled genuine Western brand cigarettes. It was only after effective crackdowns against cigarette smuggling and domestic distribution channels in the late 1990s that the Chinese illegal cigarette industry shifted to exporting large numbers of counterfeit Western brand cigarettes to black markets abroad. China's current role as a leading supplier of counterfeit cigarettes is a result of the contradictions of the economic reform process and of external licit and illicit forces that worked toward opening up the Chinese tobacco sector to the outside world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Criminal confessions following the questioning of suspects by police and prosecuting investigators is a problem in the PRC in that some of these admissions of guilt result from the application of illegal methods of interviewing. The interview process is regulated by legislation and policy documents that in practice are frequently ignored; illegal pressures generate false confessions which have resulted in high profile cases of injustice. This article describes one such case. The article outlines the laws and regulations covering the interview of criminal suspects; explains why the regulations and law are often flouted; and considers proposals to promote the due process approach that exists primarily in documents at the moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at providing an account of the social organization of the cigarette counterfeiting business in the People's Republic of China—a business that has been feeding the cigarette black markets around the globe. Specifically, we aim to exhibit the scale and nature of cigarette counterfeiting in mainland China, describe the practices and actors in the different phases of the trade, and examine the role of corruption and violence in the particular business. We argue that cigarette counterfeiting is one of the side effects of China's reform and ‘opening up’ policy, and a feature of the country's economic development process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]