Review of Police Powers of Administrative Detention in the People's Republic of China

Abstract

This article illustrates the ways in which the legislative regimes for the imposition of sanctions of administrative detention give broad and vaguely defined powers to the police in the People's Republic of China. The research found that most legislation gave police wide discretion to exercise their powers and, in particular, to determine whether certain conduct merited the detention of the person. While processes to review such police actions have been legally established, they tend to be limited in scope. For the most part, the person aggrieved by the administrative action has limited capacity to require the review body to investigate or act upon their complaint.

The evolution of criminal interrogation rules in China

“…Although the police's administrative power that was once used to control the urban transients has been eliminated under the 1996 CPL, their power for detaining criminal suspects was extended. No doubt, Chinese police, compared with those of Western law enforcement, have greater authority and power over ordinary citizens (Biddulph, 1993;Ma, 1997).…”

Policing in the People's Republic of China: a review of recent literature

“…Research also comprehensively examined the legal basis and abuse of police power to impose administrative sanctions. Compared with American police, Chinese police enjoy greater authority and power to impose a wide range of administrative sanctions without court approval in the cases of minor crimes and public order violations [1,25]. One example is the imposition of detention as an administrative punishment by the police.…”

“…One example is the imposition of detention as an administrative punishment by the police. In the early 1990s, major administrative sanctions included administrative detention, shelter and investigation, reeducationthrough-labor, administratively coercive measure against property, and retention for In-Camp employment [1,25]. Shelter and investigation was abolished in 1997 [26].…”

“…One of the unintended consequences of the early strategies was the abuse of police power in administrative sanctions [1,12]. More recent campaigns also involved excessive punishment [23,31,32].…”

“…Shelter and investigation as an administrative sanction was originally used to control two types of suspects (i.e., persons who committed minor offenses but their identifications could not be determined and persons who committed minor offenses and were suspected of committing crimes repeatedly, at different places, or in gangs) [1,25,34]. According to Ma [25], because of the broad power under shelter and investigation and the lack of clearly defined restrictions, abuse of power and net widening was widely reported.…”