Juvenile delinquency and justice in contemporaryChina: a critical review of the literature over 15 years

Lening Zhang

Published online: 5 July 2008# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract The study reviews research on juvenile delinquency and justice in Chinasince 1990. The review covers three issues that have been studied in thepublications: (1) the nature and scope of China’s juvenile delinquency; (2)individual, group, and institutional factors and their roles in delinquency involve-ment; and (3) the development of China’s juvenile justice. Because Hong Kong is aspecial region of China and has a different social, political, and legal system, thestudy reviews the publications on Hong Kong’s juvenile delinquency and justice in aseparate section. It summarizes the findings derived from the review, analyzes anddiscusses the limitations of the reviewed studies, and provides prospects for futureresearch in the area.

Introduction

China is a largely populated nation with about 360 million juveniles who are underage 18 [34]. As China is moving toward a market economy since the late 1970s,juvenile involvement in illegal activities has been rising significantly. During the1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the percent of juvenile offenses in the total crime rangedfrom 0.2% to 3%. In contrast, the range increased to 15% to 30% during the 1990s[23]. The rising juvenile offenses pose a serious challenge to the Chinese criminaljustice system. China did not have a juvenile justice system during Mao’s regime.Juvenile offenders were either handled by regular criminal agencies or by informalorganizations such as neighborhood committees [34]. In response to the risingjuvenile offenses and the legal movement toward the rule of law, a juvenile justicesystem has developed in China since the mid-1980s. The development has beenmade along with a few significant legal events such as the passage of the law on theprotection of minors in 1991 and the law on delinquency prevention in 1999.

Crime Law Soc Change (2008) 50:149–160DOI 10.1007/s10611-008-9137-1

L. Zhang (*)Department of Behavioral Sciences, Saint Francis University, Loretto, PA 15940, USAe-mail: lzhang@francis.edu

These dramatic changes in China provide valuable opportunities for researchers tostudy juvenile offenses and juvenile justice in a different social and cultural setting.As a result, many studies have been conducted since 1990. The present studyattempts to conduct a critical review of the studies published in English, summarizethe major findings, identify the limitations, and offer suggestions for future researchon China’s juvenile delinquency and justice.

The literature search was conducted using two common sources ProQuest andSociological Abstracts. The major search words were “China’s juvenile delinquen-cy,” “China’s juvenile offenses,” and “China’s juvenile justice” with a number ofdifferent combinations. The search ranges from 1990 to early 2008. The searchresults yield a total of 34 publications, 24 on juvenile delinquency and justice inmainland China, nine on juvenile delinquency and justice in Hong Kong, and one oncomparative studies of juvenile delinquency in mainland China and Hong Kong.

A review of the publications reveal three major research issues (1) the nature andscope of China’s juvenile delinquency; (2) individual, group, and institutional factorsand their roles in delinquency involvement; and (3) the development of China’sjuvenile justice. The present study summarizes the major findings from thepublications along with these issues. Because Hong Kong has a distinctive socialcontext with a long colonial history under the British ruling, the study presents themajor findings from the publications on Hong Kong’s juvenile delinquency andjustice in a separate section.

The nature and scope of China’s juvenile delinquency

It is difficult to estimate the nature and scope of China’s juvenile delinquency due tovery limited accesses to obtain official data and conduct surveys on delinquency inChina. However, several studies have made efforts to use limited official and surveydata to depict the changing reality of juvenile delinquency in China. As part ofanalysis of the rising crime in China, Bakken [1] compared youth crime percents inChina’s total crime over 30 years from 1952 to 1989 using available officialstatistics. He found that youth offenses among those at ages 14 to 25 years oldaccounted for about 20% of the total crime in 1952 and it increased to 74.1% in1989. During 1950s to 1960s, juvenile delinquency among those at ages 14 to18 years old accounted for 0.2% to 0.3% and it increased to 19.9% in 1989.

He assessed the possible association of the significant increase of youth crime withthe youth population boom since 1950s and concluded that the change in youthpopulation could not explain the significant increase of youth crime. In 1956, youths inthe age group of 14 to 25 years old accounted for 24.4% of the total population groupover 14, but took only 18% of the total crime. In 1988, the same age group accounted for34.3% of the population, but represented 75.7% of the total crime. Curran and Cook [6]also assessed the change in youth crime using similar official data. However, theyconcluded that although youth crime in China increased significantly since late 1970s,in absolute numbers, the officially recoded incidence of youth offenses was still muchlower than that in many other countries in the world.

The study of Wei et al. [21] provides support for such a conclusion. Theycompared juvenile offenses in Shanghai of China and Brisbane of Australia using

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self-report data from 565 school students and apprehended juvenile offenders inShanghai and 903 in Brisbane. Their findings indicate that reported participationrates in most offending categories were much higher in the Brisbane sample than inthe Shanghai sample. Also, students in the Brisbane sample were much more likely toreport at least one type of offenses than those in the Shanghai sample. The Brisbanesample had an earlier peak of co-offending at ages 15 to 16 than the Shanghai sampleat ages 17–18. However, co-offending was more common in the Shanghai sample thanthe Brisbane sample.

Another study by Friday et al. [9] provides further evidence for the still relativelow incidence of juvenile offenses in China compared to that in many other countriesin the world. Using data collected from a birth cohort study initiated by MarvinWolfgang but never completed in a large city Wuhan of China, Friday et al. reportedthat only 81 of the 5,341 individuals in the 1973 original cohort had official recordsfor delinquent and/or criminal behaviors, which accounted for 1.5% of the cohort. Ina study 10 years later, a similar rate was found. They concluded that the rate ofjuvenile offending in the city was exceptionally low compared to 35% of policeinvolvement in the 1945 Philadelphia cohort and 32.8% in the 1958 Philadelphiacohort as well as the percents in a few other developed countries such as Germany,England and Sweden.

Additionally, a few studies have conducted preliminary investigations of drinkingand smoking among Chinese adolescents. Li et al. [12] assessed the prevalence andpattern of alcohol consumption among Chinese adolescents using data collectedfrom a sample of 1,040 students in sixth, eighth, and tenth grades from five publicschools in Beijing of China. The results show that about 70% of the respondentsreported prior alcohol consumption. Male students (78%) were more likely to drinkthan female students (61%). Beers were the most commonly consumed alcoholbeverage and there was a progression of use from beers to wines and/or hard liquors.Drinking was likely to be associated with other problem behaviors.

Another study examined the prevalence of smoking among Chinese adolescents[11]. The study surveyed a sample of 323 middle school students in Beijing, 1997and found that about 15% of the respondents reported having ever smoked. Malestudents had a much higher rate of smoking (23%) than female students (5%).Similarly, students who used cigarettes were more likely to have other problembehaviors.

Individual, group, and institutional factors in delinquency involvement

As delinquency is rising significantly along with the nation’s movement tomodernization, China provides an interesting setting to study the influential factorsin delinquency involvement. Using several popular Western theories such asHirschi’s social control theory, Sutherland’s differential association theory, andAgnew’s general strain theory, a number of studies have investigated the roles ofindividual, group, and institutional factors in delinquency. Bao et al. [2] appliedAgnew’s general strain theory to assess the mediating role of negative emotions suchas anger, resentment, anxiety, and depression in the relationship betweeninterpersonal strain and delinquency using a sample of 615 middle and high

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students in three rural and urban locations of China. Their findings have a generalconvergence with those discovered in the United States. For example, they foundthat anger mediated the effect of interpersonal strain on violent delinquent acts forthe sample. Using data collected from the sample, they also analyzed theconditioning effects of adolescent coping strategies on the relationship betweeninterpersonal strain and delinquency [3]. The results indicate that utilizing personalresources in family, school, and peer groups moderated the relationship betweeninterpersonal strain and delinquency which provide support for Agnew’s generalstrain theory in a different cultural setting. Such conditioning effects varied betweenmale and female respondents.

A few studies have examined group factors such as peer groups and youth gangsin delinquency involvement. Using data collected from a survey of two subsampleswith 369 “officially delinquent” and 443 “officially nondelinquent” youths in thelarge city of Tianjin, China in 1988, Zhang and Messner [28] found that friends’deviance was significantly associated with official status of delinquency when otherimportant variables such as family deviance and neighbors’ deviance werecontrolled. Friday et al. [9] presented similar findings. They compared offendersand nonoffenders using data collected from the Wuhan cohort study and found thatpeer problem behaviors were significantly correlated with the official status ofoffenders.

Zhang et al. [32] analyzed data collected from a 1991 survey of 1,063 inmates inthe city of Tianjin to assess Chinese youth gangs and gang-related crime. They foundsimilar characteristics of Chinese youth gangs compared to those in the UnitedStates. The organizational level of Chinese youth gangs was low, offenders whowere involved in gang-related crime were usually in an age-range of the mid-teens,and prior offenses were significantly related to involvement in gang-related crime.However, they did not find an association between gang-related crime and theseriousness of the offense for which the inmate was incarcerated, which isinconsistent to that discovered in the United States. The data also indicate asignificant and positive relationship between gang-related crime and the severity ofofficial punishment, which reflected the official Chinese policy to severely crackdown on gangs and gang crime.

Traditionally, Chinese life has been family-centered. Therefore, family as aconventional institution has received a fair of attention for its role in China’sdelinquency. Zhang and Messner [28] examined family members’ deviance and theofficial status of delinquency in China using data from the same 1988 survey ofofficial delinquents and nonofficial delinquents. They found that family members’deviance was directly related to the official status of delinquency when otherimportant family and peer variables were controlled. They also found indirect effectsof family members’ deviance via family controls, moral commitments, and peerdeviance. For their study, house crowding and family socio-economic status werenegatively associated with the official delinquency status while parental harshdiscipline and parental spoiling were positively related to the status. They concludedthat these direct and indirect effects of family members’ deviance might reflect theChinese traditional emphasis placed on family relations.

Wang et al. [20] presented similar findings. They surveyed a mixed sample of 527middle/high school students and juveniles from drug treatment centers located in a

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province of Southern China in 1997. They found that family attachment and parentalsupervision were significantly and negatively associated with substance use, butfound no relationships between these family variables and deviant behavior. Dengand Roosa [8] also examined delinquent behavior with a number of family variables,including parental monitoring, family opportunities for conventional activities,adolescent involvement in family conventional activities, adolescent perceivedparental rewards for desirable behaviors, and parental attachment. They analyzeddata collected from 736 seventh and ninth graders, their parents, and their teachersfrom two middle schools in Beijing. The data reveal that parental monitoring andattachment had direct effects on delinquency for boys. For girls, only parentalmonitoring was found to be a significant factor. Both the studies by Taylor et al. [19]and Friday et al. [9] indicate that fathers’ expectations for youth are a significantfactor in determining offending status based on data collected from the Wuhancohort study.

School as a conventional institution may also have an influence on delinquencyinvolvement according to social control theory. Zhang and Messner [29] examinedthe influence using data collected from the 1988 survey of official delinquents andnonofficial delinquents in Tianjin. They found that similar to the findings in Westernresearch, school attachment and school quality were two significant indicators ofofficial delinquency status. Wang et al. [20] had a similar finding for schoolattachment. The Wuhan cohort data as analyzed by Friday et al. [9] indicate thatschool dropout and relations with teachers had significant effects on offendingstatus.

Before China initiated economic reform in the early 1980s, there was a masssystem of work units (Danwei) controlled by the Chinese government under the stateplanning economy. A work unit was not only a business establishment whereChinese workers earned income, but it also had multiple functions such as housingand health care for workers. Zhang and Messner [30] discussed the unique featuresof work units as conventional institutions and analyzed the relationship betweenyoung workers’ bonds to work units and official delinquency status using data fromthe 1988 survey of official delinquents and nonofficial delinquents in Tianjin. Theyfound that strong bonds to work units significantly reduced the risk of becomingofficial offenders when other important variables such as job types and forms ofwork units were controlled.

When examining institutional influence on delinquency, labeling theory providesa unique perspective. For the theory, any institutional or official intervention indelinquency involvement may lead to adverse consequences for the individual beingofficially labeled as criminal. Using the labeling perspective, Zhang [25, 26] andZhang and Messner [27] assessed several possible consequences of having officialoffense status among Chinese youths. The studies analyzed the 1988 Tianjin surveyof official delinquents and nonofficial delinquents to determine the possible changesin youths’ self-esteem and interpersonal relations. The data reveal that officialoffense status was likely to have a negative effect on self-esteem of the labeledyouths [26] and the severity of official punishment for delinquency significantlyaffected interpersonal estrangement from friends and neighbors, but not from parentsand relatives [27]. Zhang [25] further found that the severity of official punishmentfor delinquency was significantly associated with peer rejection of official

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delinquents and such a relationship was greater for nondelinquent peer rejection thanfor delinquent peer rejection. These findings provide support for the labelingperspective in a different social context.

The development of China’s juvenile justice system

There was no juvenile justice system during Mao’s regime although a few China’slaws such as the marriage law provided special protections of minors [34]. Asdelinquency rates have been rising since the nation implemented economic reformand “open door” policy in the early 1980s, China has begun developing a juvenilejustice system. The development is part of the nation’s social and legal movementtowards “rule of law.” As Zhao [34] documented, the first juvenile court wasinitiated in the city of Shanghai in 1984. The grassroots People’s court of ChangingDistrict of the city established a collegial penal to hear juvenile cases. Since theinitiation, China has more than 3,300 juvenile courts. According to Zhao [34], theChinese juvenile justice system has four components including police, the people’sprocuratorate, the juvenile court, and corrections. She discussed several features ofthe juvenile court. The age range for a juvenile who can be referred to a juvenilecourt is 14 to 18. The court performs “double protections” which imply that the courtshall have a deliberate consideration of the balance between protections of juvenilesand the community. The judicial process of the court shall be legal and educational.A trial in the juvenile court is not only a process of legal judgment on the offenseand the offender, but also a process of educating the juvenile offender. The juvenileprocessing is more informal than the adult processing and the trial in a juvenile courtis closed to the pubic. Education is the major purpose of juvenile processing ratherthan punishment. Punishment is likely to be lenient and death penalty shall be notapplicable to juvenile offenders.1

The development of juvenile justice system has been coupled with thedevelopment of legislation on juveniles and delinquency. Two significant laws thathave been adopted were the passage of the law on the protection of minors in 1991and the law on delinquency prevention in 1999. Zhao [34] believed that the law onthe protection of minors was the first enacted legislation in China to providecomprehensive protection of minors’ rights and interests. She reviewed anddiscussed the law and indicated that the guiding principle of the law was to protectminors’ physical and mental health, safeguard their legal rights and interests,promote their intellectual and moral development, and transform them into qualifiedcitizens.

Zhang and Liu [33] reviewed and analyzed the 1999 law on delinquencyprevention. They assessed the social and legal context of the law, the main content ofthe law, and the philosophical underpinnings of the law. Their assessment indicatesthat enactment of the law represents a significant legal reaction to the risingdelinquency, reflects China’s legal reform from “rule of man” to “rule of law,”

1 It should be noted that before 1996 offenders at ages 16 to 18 were subject to the suspended deathsentence. After 1996, it has been made absolute that no one under age 18 is subject to the death sentenceincluding the suspended death sentence.

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indicates a significant social and political effort to legalize and define the juvenilejustice system, and reflects a continuation of Mao’s mass-line policy in criminaljustice to mobilize all social forces to combat delinquency.

For their analysis, the law emphasizes delinquency prevention that involves threelevels of efforts. The first one is to target all juveniles through legal and moraleducation before any involvement in delinquency. Minor delinquent acts are also animportant prevention target before any serious offenses occur. Finally, preventionshould also target recidivism before any deep and chronic involvement indelinquency. Such an emphasis on delinquency prevention is rooted in the Chinesephilosophy of “nipping crime in the bud.” The law also has an emphasis on theprotection of juveniles. This emphasis continues the principle of the 1991 law on theprotection of minors. It views juvenile protection as an important measure inpreventing delinquency. Such an emphasis reflects another Chinese philosophy thatall humans are born with good nature and equal potential for being good. What isneeded is to protect them from bad influence from the environment. The law alsoclearly stipulates education as a major measure in delinquency prevention.Traditionally the Chinese have strongly believed in the power of education inshaping people’s thoughts and behaviors. Given the philosophy that all humans areborn with good nature, proper training and education are needed for people tomaintain being good through moral development and growth. Strong moraldevelopment and growth can make individuals capable to resist bad influence fromthe environment.

Zhao [34] and Wong [24] also reviewed and discussed the law and had similarfindings although their studies concentrated on descriptions and introduction of thelaw. They believed that adoption of the law was a significant legal step in responseto the surging juvenile offenses and provided more clear legal definitions andstipulations of the roles that justice agencies such as police shall play in controllingjuvenile offenses. They also viewed the law as a significant indicator of China’smovement to a more formal model in delinquency control.

As part of the juvenile justice system, a few studies have also addressedcorrectional and rehabilitation efforts for juvenile offenders in China [4, 10, 23, 24,31]. China has two common types of formal or official correctional andrehabilitation institutions. One is the work-study schools for juveniles who are atages 12 to 18 and have committed minor delinquent acts such as pretty theft andsimple assaults. These juveniles are not officially adjudicated in juvenile courts, buttheir behaviors are hardly controlled by families and regular schools. The work-study schools are quasi-judicial institutions that are administered by the Ministry ofState Education through its local bureaus in coordination with police [4, p. 338].They combine intensively supervised middle-school educational tasks with lightlabor work as a means to inculcate moral values and teach self-discipline. The schoolterm is commonly up to 2 years. School authority, police departments, neighborhoodcommittees, or parents have the right and authority to request a problem juvenile tobe placed in a work-study school.

The second type is the juvenile reformatories. As Chen [4] and Wrong [23]described, juvenile reformatories are judicial correctional and rehabilitationinstitutions which host juvenile offenders who have been disposed by juvenilecourts. The purpose of reformatories is to reform juvenile offenders through labor

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work and education with an emphasis on education in achieving moral growth andmiddle- or high-school educational standards. The serving term in a reformatoryranges from 1 to 3 years [23].

Given China’s traditional emphasis on informal control, China has maintained asignificant sub-justice system for juvenile offenders although the nation is moving toa more formal criminal justice model. Guo [10], Wong [23, 24], and Zhang et al.[31] described and analyzed a unique form—Bang-jiao in the system. Bang-jiao is acommunity-based rehabilitation program that assists, helps, guides, and directsjuvenile offenders for their returning to normal life. It functions in a form of socialgroup commonly consisting parents, relatives, friends, a representative from theneighborhood committee, and an officer from the neighborhood police station.Juveniles under the purview of Bang-jiao include those who have committed minoroffenses, those who have released from correctional institutions, or those who havereceived early release from correctional institutions. Using data collected from the1991 inmate survey in the city of Tianjin, China, Zhang et al. [31] found thatoffenders who reported residing in communities with Bang-jiao were less likely tobe repeat offenders than those who lived in communities without the rehabilitationprogram.

Juvenile delinquency and justice in Hong Kong

Hong Kong was under the British rule for more than 100 years. It has a uniquecombination of the Chinese tradition and a typical capitalist commercial culture.Although the Chinese government took the sovereignty back in 1997, Hong Kong isstill a special region of China that has a different social, political, and legal system. Asa result, juvenile delinquency and justice may differ from those in mainland China. Anumber of studies have addressed juvenile delinquency and justice in Hong Kong.

Wong [22] described juvenile offenses in Hong Kong during 1970s to 1990susing official statistics. His analysis shows that the rate of juvenile offensesincreased during 1980s and then started declining during the 1990s. The rate rosefrom 973 per 100,000 in 1976 to a peak of 2203 in 1995. For his comparison, therate of juvenile offenses in Hong Kong was much higher than that in mainland China(about 200 per 100,000 for juveniles at age of 14 to 18) [22, p. 280]. In response tothe rising delinquency during 1980s, the Hong Kong government initiated severalpreventive programs including children and youth center, outreaching social work,school social work, and family life education. Wong described these programsalthough no assessment of their effectiveness was provided. He also described thelegal measures such as detention centers, training centers, and reformatory schools incombating juvenile offenses. These measures are similar to those adopted in Britishas Wong pointed out.

Other studies have assessed a number of individual, group, and institutionalfactors in delinquency involvement using data collected from surveys in Hong Kong.Because of the strong capitalist and commercial context in Hong Kong, a few studieshave assessed perceived economic stress and inequality and juvenile offenses [14,15]. Ngai and Cheung [14] analyzed data collected from a sample of 229economically marginal youths in 1999 and Shek [15] investigated a sample of

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1,591 adolescents with and without economic disadvantages, respectively. Theyfound that both perceived economic stress (i.e., current economic hardship andfuture economic uncertainties) and inequality were significantly related to adolescentproblem behaviors. Further, Shek [16] used longitudinal data of 199 Chineseadolescents with economic disadvantages over two time periods to assess theassociation between Chinese cultural beliefs about adversity and adolescent problembehaviors. The data show that strong attachment to the Chinese cultural beliefs aboutadversity (measured in nine items such as one stating that hardship increases stature)was related to adolescent problem behaviors at both time 1 and time 2.2

Group and institutional factors have also attracted researchers’ attention instudying juvenile delinquency in Hong Kong. Shek [17] and Shek et al. [18]examined family and parental influence on delinquency involvement using the samelongitudinal data. Both studies found that parental variables such as parenting stylesand perceived parent–adolescent relationships were commonly associated withadolescent problem behaviors at time 1 and time 2. Using data from 398 at-riskadolescents and 320 secondary-school students, Davis et al. [7] had similar findingson the relationship between adolescent relations with parents and problem behaviors.Their data also indicate that peer negative influence was a significant factor inadolescent problem behaviors. Ma et al. [13] and Ngai and Cheung [14] showedsimilar findings using different data sets. Ma et al. [13] also found a genderdifference in peer influence. Their analysis of 2,862 adolescents in Hong Kongindicated that negative peer influence was significantly stronger in boys than in girlswhile positive peer influence was significantly stronger in girls than in boys. Finally,they indicated that school attachment as measured in academic achievement was alsosignificantly and negatively related to adolescent problem behaviors.

One study [5] compared the roles of a number of family variables such as parentalsupport and family problems in delinquency involvement in Hong Kong andGuangzhou (a major city of mainland China which is next to Hong Kong). The studycollected data from 1,026 secondary school students in Guangzhou and from 1,116in Hong Kong. Generally, the effects of the family variables on adolescent problembehaviors did not vary significantly across Guangzhou and Hong Kong although thearea characteristics might condition the effects.

Conclusion

The present study has reviewed 34 journal articles on China’s juvenile delinquencyand justice since 1990. The review reveals that researchers in the academiccommunity of criminology and criminal justice have devoted a fair degree ofattention to China’s juvenile delinquency and justice as the nation has become moreopen to the outside world and as juvenile offenses are becoming a social problem.The articles have addressed a number of important issues in China’s juveniledelinquency and justice using Western well-developed theories and methodologies.

2 Unfortunately, Both Shek’s studies did not report the years when the surveys were conducted.

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A good start has been observed with a few relatively high-quality studies. However,it is also clear that the published studies in the area have several serious limitations.

First, a good number of studies that have been reviewed are descriptive andinformative without much conceptualization and theorizing. Descriptive informationis useful for people to know the reality of China’s delinquency or juvenile justice.However concepts and theories are much needed to explore how and why Chineseadolescents are likely to engage in certain types of delinquency and how and whyChinese juvenile justice system has developed in a certain way with fairly differentprograms. The development in concepts and theories would help us betterunderstand juvenile delinquency and justice in a different social setting.

Theoretically, most studies that have been reviewed are in the first phase ofcomparative criminology in which a study used Western theories to investigatedelinquency or juvenile justice in a different social and cultural setting. Chinesesociety has unique features and juvenile behaviors in that society may exhibitdistinctive characteristics as a few studies have demonstrated. There is a need todevelop new concepts and theories to capture these unique features and character-istics. Such development would advance and enrich our knowledge and understand-ing of juvenile delinquency and justice in a hope to develop a general theory acrossdifferent social and cultural settings.

Although a number of empirical studies have emerged with survey data, the dataused in the studies are fairly limited. They were commonly collected fromconvenience samples with a limited number of measures. There is an urgent needto conduct more systematic and comprehensive surveys to produce high quality datafor analysis. Also, no panel studies have been conducted in mainland China.Although there was one that collected longitudinal data from the same respondentsacross times in Hong Kong, the data quality is fairly questionable as reviewed. Thereis also a need to collect longitudinal data for more solid casual analyses.

Finally, the quality of the reviewed articles varies significantly in theories,methodology, and statistics. It is my hope that the present study provides apreliminary documentation of the past research on China’s juvenile delinquency andjustice for researchers to develop and advance their studies in this area. As China isemerging as an economic and political superpower in the world, it is likely thatresearch on crime and criminal justice in China will advance significantly in theyears ahead.

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