The Death Penalty in China: Policy, Practice, and Reform

by Bin Liang (Editor), Hong Lu (Editor), Roger Hood (Foreword by)

Overview

Featuring experts from Europe, Australia, Japan, China, and the United States, this collection of essays follows changes in the theory and policy of China's death penalty from the Mao era (1949–1979) through the Deng era (1980–1997) up to the present day. Using empirical data, such as capital offender and offense profiles, temporal and regional variations in capital punishment, and the impact of social media on public opinion and reform, contributors relay both the character of China's death penalty practices and the incremental changes that indicate reform. They then compare the Chinese experience to other countries throughout Asia and the world, showing how change can be implemented even within a non-democratic and rigid political system, but also the dangers of promoting policies that society may not be ready to embrace.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231170062
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	12/01/2015
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Bin Liang is an associate professor of sociology at Oklahoma State University–Tulsa. He is the author of The Changing Chinese Legal System, 1978–Present: Centralization of Power and Rationalization of the Legal System, coauthor of China's Drug Practices and Policies: Regulating Controlled Substances in a Global Context, and with Hong Lu, coeditor of Jurisprudence: Contemporary Western Sociological Studies and Developments.

Hong Lu is professor in the Criminal Justice Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is the coauthor of Punishment: A Comparative Historical Perspective and China's Death Penalty: History, Law and Contemporary Practices.

Roger Hood is professor emeritus of criminology at the University of Oxford and emeritus fellow of All Souls College.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface and Acknowledgments
1. China's Death Penalty Practice: Working Progress, Struggle, and Challenges Within the Global Abolition Movement, by Bin Liang
2. The Criminal Justice System and the Death Penalty, by Hong Lu, Yudu Liu, and Charlotte Hu
3. Crimes of Counterrevolution and Politicized Use of the Death Penalty Durgaing the Mao Era, by Ning Zhang
4. China's Death Penalty in a State-Power-Based Society, by Yunhai Wang
5. From "Killing Many" to "Killing Fewer", by Susan Trevaskes
6. The Abolitionist and Retentionist Debate, by Zhigang Yu (translated by Charlotte Hu)
7. Guiding Cases for China's Death Penalty: Analysis and Reflection, by Xingliang Chen (translated by Charlotte Hu)
8. The Death Penalty After the Restoration of Centralized Review: An Empirical Study on Capital Sentencing, by Moulin Xiong
9. Public Opinion and the Death Penalty, by Shanhe Jiang
10. Between Deference and Defiance: Courts and Penal Populism in Chinese Capital Cases, by Hualing Fu
11. Chinese Capital Punishment in Comparative Perspective, by David T. Johnson and Michelle Miao
12. China's Death Penalty in the Twenty-First Century, by Bin Liang and Hong Lu
List of Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

The book is an excellent source of quick and up-to-date reference material for scholars of death penalty institutions in China, and criminal justice more broadly.

Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books

A timely assessment of China's death penalty reform in context, this volume is a must read for academics and activists.

Choice

The Death Penalty in China is undoubtedly the most far-reaching, comprehensive, and current study of capital punishment by the world’s largest executioner.

Asian Criminology - Andrew Novak

This edited volume is a must-read for students and researchers interested in the study of the death penalty.

Human Rights Review

This excellent collection of essays should be greatly welcomed, providing as it does insights into the way that Chinese scholars, both within and outside China, as well as foreign scholars who have studied the Chinese system in depth, explain the changes underway and assess their significance. The Death Penalty in China needs to be read by everyone concerned with the project of eliminating capital punishment throughout the world.

from the foreword by Roger Hood

This is the first edited book in English on comparative research about China's death penalty, which appears as timely and intensively international . . . cutting-edge, interdisciplinary scholars from five countries and four continents . . . conduct their examination of China from a broad perspective.

Law and Social Change Crime

No institution in the legal system of contemporary China has attracted more controversy and misunderstanding than the death penalty. Moreover, remarkable changes have significantly altered the way the death penalty is perceived and applied in the world's most populous state. The Death Penalty in China is required reading for anyone desiring to keep abreast of China's evolving legal landscape, criminal justice reform, and perplexing human rights environment. Highly recommended.

Andrew Scobell

This outstanding book describes proficiently what is known and knowable about the death penalty in transition in China today. The cooperation between excellent Chinese scholars and world-renowned scholars from abroad secures relevance and accuracy. Debates and practices are captured in light of Chinese death penalty history, the special character of the Chinese state, as well as in comparison to other Chinas of the present.

Lill Scherdin

No institution in the legal system of contemporary China has attracted more controversy and misunderstanding than the death penalty. Moreover, remarkable changes have significantly altered the way the death penalty is perceived and applied in the world's most populous state. The Death Penalty in China is required reading for anyone desiring to keep abreast of China's evolving legal landscape, criminal justice reform, and perplexing human rights environment. Highly recommended.