NCJ Number
217257
Journal
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume: 51 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2007 Pages: 25-39
Date Published
February 2007
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This study examined 29 provincial laws on the protection of women in China to test Black’s proposition that the quantity of law varies with stratification, morphology, culture, organization, and social control.
Abstract
Results failed to support Black’s hypothesis with one exception: significant direct relationships were observed between morphology, as measured by women’s participation in the labor force, and the quantity of five types of provincial laws governing the protection of women. The findings suggest that the process of legal development in China does not fit with Black’s model of the relationship between the quantity of law and the structural elements of society. The law, or absence of law, in China has been significantly shaped by unique political, ideological, and cultural factors. These factors, particularly cultural and ethical factors, virtually replaced the role of law in maintaining social control in China. The findings may also be explained by the complex nature of women’s issues in Chinese society. Black (1976) argued that the quantity of law operating in a society could be explained by five aspects of social life: stratification, morphology, culture, organization, and social control. This proposition was tested through an examination of 29 Chinese Provincial laws on the Protection of Women and Children enacted between 1983 and 1989. Chinese census data was also examined, which provided information on social and economic characteristics for Chinese provinces, autonomous regions, and central government municipalities. Measures of culture included education, regional characteristics, urbanization, and access to a variety of information. Organization was measured by social welfare services, hospital bed availability, and entertainment outlets. Measures of informal social control included the level of community mediation. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the data. Future research should focus not only on the quantity of laws, but also at the particular features of laws and their ease of implementation in Chinese society. Tables, appendix, references