Internal Migration, Crime, and Punishment in Contemporary China, 1st ed. 2018
An inquiry into rural migrant offenders
Springer Series on Asian Criminology and Criminal Justice Research Series

This work investigates inequality and social exclusion in contemporary Chinese society, specifically in the context of urbanization, migration and crime. Economic reforms started in the late 1970s (post-Mao) fuelled a trend of urbanization and mass migration within China, largely from rural areas to more economically developed urban regions. With this migration, came new challenges in a rapidly changing society. Researchers have extensively studied the rural-to-urban human movement, social changes, inequality and its impact on individuals and society as a whole.

This volume provides a new perspective on this issue. It forges a link between internal migration, inequality, social exclusion and crime in the context of China, through qualitative research into the impact of this phenomenon on individuals? lives. Using a series of case studies drawn from interviews with inmates ? men and women ? in a large Chinese prison, it focuses on migrant offenders? subjective experiences, and analyses issues from the rarely-heard perspectives of migrant lawbreakers themselves. The research demonstrates how factors ? including: the hukou system, rural-urban, class and gender inequalities, prejudices against rural migrants, and other structural problems ? often lead to migrant offending.

The author argues that to mitigate the effects of criminalisation, the root causes of these problems should be examined, emphasizing radical reforms to the hukou policy, cultural change in urban society to welcome newcomers, positive programs to integrate migrant workers into urban societies and improve their opportunities, rather than inflicting harsher penalties or reducing migration. While the research is based in China, it has clear implications for other regions of the world, which are experiencing similar tensions related to national and international migration.

This work will be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice, particularly with an interest in Asia, as well as those in related fields such as sociology, law and social justice.

Introduction.- Social Identity of Migrant Offenders.- Criminality of Migrant Offenders and Their Motivations.- Female Migrants and Criminality.- Punishing Migrant Offenders.- Conclusion.

Anqi Shen is Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School, Northumbria University Newcastle, United Kingdom. Her research focus is in the areas of sentencing, judicial culture, policing, organised crime, youth, gender, crime and justice, the legal profession, and migration and crime. She is author of Offending Women in Contemporary China: Gender and pathways into crime (Palgrave, 2015) and of Women Judges in Contemporary China: Gender, judging and living (Palgrave, 2017), and co-author of Fake Goods, Real Money: The counterfeiting business and its financial management (Policy Press, 2018).

Significance. This book is about international migration, crime and punishment – a contemporary, multifaceted, complex social phenomenon – in the context of China. It focuses on the subjective experience of migrant offenders in the rural-to-urban mass migration process, which is an under-researched area of scholarship New perspectives. It is the first research monograph in the Chinese context that pays attention to migrant offenders’ qualitative experience in criminality and the criminal justice system. It analyses migration, crime and punishment from migrant offenders’ perspectives and also through a gender lens to advance the field of study Originality, rigour and contribution. The book takes a multi-disciplinary approach and borrows theories and concepts from sociology, criminology, law and gender studies, to examine rural-to-urban migration and its impact on individuals and society, and the criminogenic effects in particular. The analysis of this book is rested upon the unique empirical material generated in fieldwork conducted in a prison setting in China, to which access is remarkably hard to gain. The original data helps shed new lights on the subject matter to make contributions to the global context of migration studies