Two years between life and death: A critical analysis of the suspended death penalty in China

Miao, Michelle

doi:10.1016/j.ijlcj.2015.10.003

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Second, the fact that over one-third of Chinese students chose the suspended death penalty in the hypothetical case showed the popularity of this unique practice in China. Indeed, short of other alternatives, the suspended death penalty (which is, by default, commuted to life imprisonment after the 2-year suspension) has been recommended by the Chinese Supreme Court as a major substitute for the death penalty in the new century (Miao, 2016). In China and elsewhere, a viable alternative punishment (e.g., the LWOP), acceptable to the public, would most likely play a key role in reducing death sentences and executions worldwide.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing Death Penalty Opinions With General Questions and A Specific Case Scenario: Potential Lessons From China

Liang

Liu³

2021

Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol

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Despite rich literature on public opinion on capital punishment, only a few studies examined people’s death penalty support within specific contexts. None have explored if correlates that influence people’s opinion would hold the same effect in general questions and specific case scenarios. Similarly, the Marshall hypotheses have not been tested with specific crime scenarios. Based on a sample of 1,077 students in a quasiexperimental design, this study contrasts Chinese students’ death penalty opinion in general questions with a specific crime scenario, and tests the Marshall hypotheses with the latter. Compared to their support in general questions, students’ support for death sentences dropped significantly in the specific crime scenario. Multivariate analyses showed that different factors influenced people’s decisions in the general questions and in the specific case, and respondents’ choices of preferred punishment in the specific crime scenario failed to lend support to the Marshall hypotheses.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing Death Penalty Opinions With General Questions and A Specific Case Scenario: Potential Lessons From China

Liang

Liu³

2021

Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol

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“…Anti-corruption is an important component of the Xi administration's overall policy agenda. Notably, the Ninth Amendment to the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China ('Criminal Law') that went into effect in 2015 introduced life without the possibility of parole as an alternative sanction to capital punishment for corruption offences (Miao 2016;Smith and Jiang 2019). Coverage of the amendment is arguably the clearest articulation of a Xi-era death penalty policy reform appearing in The People's Daily.…”

Section: Content Summary Of the People's Daily Coverage Of The Death ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…How many people were executed under it?) and then analyses official and semi-official sources to answer the question (see e.g., Lewis 2011;Miao 2016;Trevaskes 2008Trevaskes , 2015.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

(Not) Talking about Capital Punishment in the Xi Jinping Era

Robertson

Trevaskes

2022

Int J for Crime, Justice & Social Democracy

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In this paper, we investigate the death penalty in the People’s Republic of China in the Xi Jinping era (2012–). Unlike previous administrations, Xi does not appear to have articulated a signature death penalty policy. Where policy in China is unclear, assessing both the quality and frequency of discourse on the topic can provide evidence regarding an administration’s priorities. Therefore, we analyse death penalty discourse during Xi’s tenure and compare it with discourse under his predecessors. We base our analysis on three large datasets assembled for this project—the collected works of China’s leaders, a complete corpus of The People’s Daily and a database of academic publications in China. We find no references to the death penalty in Xi Jinping’s speeches. We also find a decline in The People’s Daily coverage of the death penalty beginning in 2015 and a sharp decrease in academic publications on capital punishment beginning in 2011. Our findings indicate that discourse on the death penalty has declined in the Xi era. We argue that the death penalty has been demobilised under Xi as a discursive site of political signalling. Finally, we conclude with some observations about discursive silence.

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“…A person sentenced to immediate execution is put to death following Supreme People’s Court ratification of the sentence. By contrast, a person given a suspended death sentence receives a provisional two-year prison term, at the end of which the death penalty may be enacted or, alternatively, converted to a prison sentence (Miao, 2016; Zhang, 2004). In fact, it is estimated that upwards of 99%of people sentenced to suspended execution are not executed after two years (Seet, 2017: 11); instead, most have their sentence converted to a term of years and end up serving about two decades in prison (Huang, 2007; Trevaskes, 2016: 130; Zhang, 2004).…”

Section: Lwop In Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

Making sense of life without parole in China

Smith¹,

2017

Punishment & Society

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In 2015, the People’s Republic of China introduced the sentence of lifelong imprisonment for a single, non-violent crime: corruption. Although life without the possibility of parole statutes were increasingly common in the US and across the world by the late 20th century, this is the first such statute ever introduced in China. While introducing the new punishment for corruption, China, the world’s leading executioner, retained the death penalty for corruption as well. This study examines the reasons for China’s adoption of life without the possibility of parole and situates China in global debates about the punitive turn and capital punishment. It also provides insights for understanding how the adoption of life without the possibility of parole fits into a wider constellation of penal practices.

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Two years between life and death: A critical analysis of the suspended death penalty in China

Cited by 12 publications

References 4 publications

Testing Death Penalty Opinions With General Questions and A Specific Case Scenario: Potential Lessons From China

Testing Death Penalty Opinions With General Questions and A Specific Case Scenario: Potential Lessons From China

(Not) Talking about Capital Punishment in the Xi Jinping Era

Making sense of life without parole in China

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