Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Police Quarterly
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Wong, K. C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

A Reflection On Police Abuse of Power in the People's Republic of China

Kam C. Wong

Chinese University of Hong Kong

There are repeated claims that the police in the People's Republic of China (PRC) abuse their legal powers. This has been attributed to a lack of institutional supervision and a failure of legal control. There are, however, other more enduring reasons contributing to police abuse of power in the PRC. This paper begins by offering some empirical data on the prevalence of PRC police abuse of power. It is followed by a case study of police abuse of shouron shencha, an investigative de tention power, to further illuminate the nature of police abuses. The paper ends by postulating some of the more significant and enduring cultural, institutional and ideological factors accounting for the abuse of police powers in the Deng era after 1979. These include: the lack of an entrenched legal culture in the rule of law, the absence of an ingrained constitutional spirit in limited government and the emer gence of pragmatism as a political ideology.

Police Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 2, 87-112 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/109861119800100205
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Police QuarterlyHome page
Yuning Wu and I. Y. Sun
Citizen Trust in Police: The Case of China
Police Quarterly, June 1, 2009; 12(2): 170 - 191.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Police QuarterlyHome page
K. C. Wong
The Philosophy of Community Policing in China
Police Quarterly, June 1, 2001; 4(2): 186 - 214.
[Abstract] [PDF]