NCJ Number
222936
Journal
International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Dated: July 2006 Pages: 1-26
Date Published
July 2006
Length
26 pages
Annotation
In an attempt to explain the People’s Republic of China (PRC) police abuse of power, this paper identifies and discusses two cultural reasons: the lack of an entrenched legal culture in the rule of law and the absence of an ingrained constitutional spirit in limited government.
Abstract
In reflecting upon the reasons for the lack of control of police powers in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), this paper starts with the premise that the law is typically a cultural product. As such, the operation of the law is informed by past history and driven by prevailing ideology. The lack of a legal culture and constitutional spirit materially affects the control of police in China. Police misconduct is viewed as personal wrongdoing, not as structural or organizational. The solution is more education, supervision, and discipline. China has a long history of rule by man and institutionalized authoritarianism. The lack of historical national culture in the rule of law and constitutional government provides little constraint on police powers. The solution to the PRC’s police lawlessness problem is thus not only in having more laws on the book or assuring more stringent law enforcement officials, but the development of a more rooted legal culture, starting with a supportive political ideology which makes the fidelity to law a categorical imperative and transcendental value. There are repeated claims that the police in the PRC abuse their legal powers. This paper identifies and discusses two cultural reasons in an attempt to explain this abuse of legal powers; the lack of an entrenched legal culture in the rule of law and the absence of an ingrained constitutional spirit in limited government. It is organized in three parts. The first part identifies the problem under discussion that is the seriousness and prevalence of abuse of power by the PRC police. The second and third parts offer two distinctive cultural-legal reasons that are the “Lack of Rule Law” and the “Lack of Constitutionalism,” to account for the observed abuse of power by the police in China. Tables