Internal Migration, Crime and Criminal Justice in China

• In Event: Migration and Human Trafficking: A Cultural Criminology Approach to Crime Construction and Representation

Abstract

Internal migrants, namely, the non-local hukou (the Chinese household registration system)
citizens are consistently overrepresented in official crime data in China. This remains constant at all stages of the criminal justice system. This research explored this disproportionate situation by analysing the criminalization process of the migrant population. Systematic fieldwork of 60 interviews with legal professionals, including police, protectorates, criminal judges, criminal lawyers and the staff from prisons and jails was conducted in China.
Using this data, this paper argues that: 1) Cumulative discrimination against the migrant population exits at every junctures of the criminal justice system; 2) Instead of looking at the individual decisions, wherein judicial discretion is limited in China, it is fundamental rather to inspect the CCP oriented bureaucratic hierarchy, the quantitative evaluation system of the criminal justice apparatus and the legal professionals within, as well as the responsibility system of institutional leadership; 3) Such processes play a significant role in the operation of the party-state and the governance of the migrants. Therefore, the issue of ‘govern through crime’ is discussed in the context of Chinese society.

Author

• Tian Ma, Willem Pompe Institute, Utrecht University