1 For purposes of this article, the “social control system” will be understood as referring to the public security (police), procuratorate, courts, and the labor reform (prison) system and the laws, regulations, and policies concerning their task of prevention and control of deviant behavior. This narrow definition includes household registration (which is administered by the public security offices), crime prevention programs, administrative sanctions against minor offenders, and the criminal justice system. In the interest of space, Party discipline and psychiatric hospitals will not be included in this discussion.Google Scholar

2 Amnesty International, China: Violations of Human Rights: Prisoners of Conscience and the Death Penalty in the People's Republic of China (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1984); id., China: Torture and III-Treatment of Prisoners (New York: Amnesty International, 1987); Asia Watch, Torture in China (New York: Asia Watch, July 1990); Harry Hongda Wu, Laogai—the Chinese Gulag (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1992) (“Wu, Laogai”); Harry Wu & Carolyn Wakeman, Bitter Winds: A Memoir of My Years in China's Gulag (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994).Google Scholar

3 Harry Wu estimates that from 1980 to 1989, four to six million prisoners were forcibly retained for labor at labor reform and labor reeducation units. Wu, Laogai 113.Google Scholar

4 This developmental scheme is sketched out in Derk Bodde & Clarence Morris, Law in Imperial China 17–29 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967).Google Scholar

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7 A. F. P. Hulsewe, Remnants of Ch'in Law 108, 125, 194–95 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985).Google Scholar

8 See Young, “Concept of Justice” at 38; Richard H. Solomon, Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture 4–5 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971); Andrew J. Nathan, “Sources of Chinese Rights Thinking,” in R. Randle Edwards, Louis Henkin, & Andrew J. Nathan, eds., Human Rights in Contemporary China 138 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

9 For a critical discussion of Discipline and Punish, see David Garland, “Foucault's Discipline and Punish: An Exposition and Critique,” 1986 ABF Res. J. 847.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 See P. Spierenburg, The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); John Langbein, Torture and the Law of Proof (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977). J. G. Merquior, Foucault 97 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), concludes that “Foucault definitely prefers ideological drama to the wayward contingencies of actual history.”Google Scholar

11 This overreliance on a single type of source is ironic, because Dutton attacks other (unnamed) “Sinologists” for the same failing, and for producing “reportage” rather than serious scholarship (at 204, 320–21).Google Scholar

12 Some of these problems are documented in reports by Amnesty International and Asia Watch, and in Wu, Laogui (cited in note 2). See also Sifabu yanjiusuo yunei anjian yanjiu ketizu, “Jin shinianlai quanguo yunei anjian de tedian ji jinhou de duice yanjiu” (Research on the Characteristics of Cases inside the Prisons throughout the Country and Present and Future Countermeasures), 5 Fanzui yu guizao yanjiu (Studies in Crime and Reform) 12 (1990); Li Yuqian, “Danqian yunei fanzui huodong xin dongxiang ji qi duice” (Current Developments in Crime in the Prisons and Its Counter-measures), in Sifabu falu zhengce yanjiushi, laogaiju, ed., Laogai laojiao gongzuo de lihn yu shijian (The Theory and Practice of Labor Reform and Labor Reeducation) 140 (Shijiazhuang: Falu chubanshe, 1988); “Gonganbu, sifabu guanyu jianjue yifa chengchu yi zican shouduan taobi chengchu de fanzui de tongzhi” (Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Justice Circular regarding Resolute Punishment according to Law of Criminal Elements Using Self-Mutilation as a Means of Escaping Punishment). in Li Yanping, ed., zhongfuca renmin gongheguo falu guifanxing jieshi jicheng (zengbuben) (Compendium of Normative Legal Interpretations of the PRC, Supp. Vol.) 742–43 (Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1991); Zhu Yongling, “Laogai changsuo xing fanzui de biaoxian xingshi ji yufang” (The Forms of Manifestation and the Prevention of Sex Crimes in Labor Reform Institutions), 3 Fanzui yu guizao yanjiu 24 (1991).Google Scholar

13 Xinhua cidian (New China Dictionary) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1980); Hunying cidian (A Chinese-English Dictionary) (Ekijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1978).Google Scholar

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15 Lung-kee Sun, zhorrgguo wenhun de shenceng jiegou (The Deep Structure of Chinese Culture) 14–15 (Taibei: Tangshan chubanshe, 1990) (“Lungkee Sun, Zhongguo wenhua de shenceng jiegou”); Lung-kee Sun, “Contemporary Chinese Culture: Structure and Emotionality,' 26 Australian J. Chinese Affairs 1, 2–3 (July 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Lung-kee Sun, Zhongguo wenhua de shenceng jiegou 82–83.Google Scholar

17 Id. at 40.Google Scholar

18 Id. at 71–74; Lung-kee Sun, 26 Australian J. Chinese Affairs at 5–6.Google Scholar

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20 Yang Dunxian, ed., Xingfaxue gailun (An Outline of Criminal Law) 159 (Beijing: Guangming ribao chubanshe, 1985); Zhongguo renmin daxue hluxi xingfa jiaoyanshi, ed., Xingfagelun (xiudingben) (The Special Provisions of the Criminal Law, rev. ed.) 407 (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 1982).Google Scholar

21 Under SAPA, the public security offices may impose fines of up to 200 yuan or up to 15 days of detention for minor offenses. The regulations concerning labor reeducation allow the police to impose sentences of up to 2 years—extendable to 3—for more serious infractions. See “Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhi'an guanli chufa tiaoli” (Security Administration Punishment Act of the PRC), art. 6, in Wang Huai'an, Gu Ming, Lin Zhun, & Sun Wanzhong, eds., Zhonghua renmin Gongheguo falu quunshu (Complete Laws of the People's Republic of China) 1529 (Changchun: Jilin renminchubanshe, 1989). Labr reeducation is discussed in Wu, Laogui 91–97 (cited in note 3).Google Scholar

22 The anticrime campaign is discussed in Jean-Louis Rocca, L'empire er son Milieu 100–107 (Paris: Plon, 1991), and in Harold Tanner, “Chinese Rape Law in Comparative” Perspective,” 31 Australian J. Chinese Affairs 12–16 (Jan. 1994).Google Scholar

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24 Legal interpretations are normative documents issued by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Justice, and other state organs. They deal with concrete questions concerning the application of law and are essential to both the day-today business of the courts as well as to the direction of the criminal justice system during campaigns. For a discussion of legal interpretation and its shaky constitutional basis, see Kong Xiaohong, “Legal Interpretation in china,” 6 Conn. J. Int'l L. 491 (Spring 1991).Google Scholar

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