China's Community Corrections: Legal Reform and Social Inertia

This book examines the roles of Chinäs community corrections in the past, present, and future. It explores not only the role of community corrections in the penal system, but also the role of punishments, notably community-based punishments in society, and how the social, cultural, and political dynamics shape their role. It traces the evolution of the legal framework for punishment, the rationales underlying the legal framework, and the society, culture, and politics in which the legal framework is grounded. This book finds that Chinäs community corrections are alternatives to both semi-formal punishments and imprisonment. In this context, the relation between punishment and reform in community corrections still needs to be clarified. This book recommends a holistic understanding of reform, with the coordination of individual and professional approaches with social and relational supports. Moreover, whereas reform enriches the state¿s reaction to crime with a higher notion of justice, its precondition is insistence on the basic notion of justice.