In the Name of Prevention? Policing ‘Social Dangerousness’ Through Arrest in China
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663920950435 |
| Published date | 01 August 2021 |
| Author | Enshen Li |
| Date | 01 August 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
In the Name of
Prevention? Policing
‘Social Dangerousness’
Through Arrest in China
Enshen Li
The University of Queensland, Australia
Abstract
Over the past half-century, the nexus between risk and prevention has increasingly
become a constant preoccupation among many criminal justice regimes around the
globe. In China, while the significant rise in crime following the marketization has been
envisaged as an important source of risk, a criminal law concept of ‘social dangerousness’
has gained increasing prominence in the country’s crime control, policing and punish-
ment systems. This article aims to shed light on how social dangerousness has been
juxtaposed with and informed China’s preventative state through critical inquiry into the
police power of arrest. I argue that the recent legal consolidation of social dangerousness
as a prerequisite to arrest has enabled this coercive measure to become more pre-
ventive in purpose. By creating an ever-expanding purview of arrest, the police become
more capable of capturing the largest possible cohort of suspects deemed ‘socially
dangerous’. This is exacerbated by the legal opacity and ambiguity of social danger-
ousness, which allows manipulation and liberal application by police in diverse sce-
narios. My analysis suggests that the preventive dimension of arrest manifests itself
largely as a punitive power, which runs the risk of turning arrest into a ‘punitive-
preventive measure’. This will, inevitably, impose the same amount of intrusiveness
and harsh treatment on suspects regardless of their risk levels. It is more concerning
that the fusion of preventiveness and punitiveness has managed to circumvent close
scrutiny of the justification for the preventive end of arrest by failing to see the need for
periodic review.
Corresponding author:
Enshen Li, The University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
Email: e.li@law.uq.edu.au
Social & Legal Studies
2021, Vol. 30(4) 581–604
ªThe Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0964663920950435
journals.sagepub.com/home/sls
Keywords
Arrest, China, preventive detention, punitiveness, risk, social dangerousness
Introduction
Over the last two decades of the 20th century, risk has become ‘a predominant way
of governing all manner of problems’ (O’Malley, 2010: 3), particularly as a socio-
logical concept to elucidate the correlation between social change, state governance,
and uncertainty (Beck, 1992; Lupton, 1999). In the realm of criminology, risk has
arguably taken a pivotal role in shaping and informing the conception of criminal
harm in the 1990s and beyond. This is most notably seen with the occurrence of the
9/11 incidents followed by a series of calamitous terrorist attacks around the globe
(Zedner, 2017). Experts have perceived growth in reported crimes, predominantly in
violent and sexual abuse crimes, as an important source of risk contributing to the
endangerment of social safety and increase in fear of crime in public spaces (Bronitt
and Easteal, 2018; Ericson and Haggerty, 1998; Garland, 2001; Hebenton and Tho-
mas, 1996; O’Malley, 2010; Simon, 2007).Manyhavealsoobservedthatriskhas
transcended the boundaries of the criminal law, and take n root in public health/
mental health, immigration policy, traffic regulation, and among other areas (Ash-
worth and Zedner, 2014; Tulich et al., 2017).
In efforts to minimize the risk of crime and public harm, the last few decades have
witnessed criminal justice policies and practices geared toward a paradigm of preven-
tion. The rationale of crime prevention is not new ( Harcourt, 2012). However, it is
conceptually divergent from the traditional justice based on deserts, referred to as a
preventive system of justice premised on the ideals of forestalling crime and regulating
behavior using pre-emptive instruments (Ashworth and Zedner, 2014; Cole, 2014;
Cohen, 1985; Feeley and Simon, 1992; Ga rland, 2001; Steiker, 1998; Tulich et al.,
2017; Zedner, 2007). In most Western democracies, there is a discernable shift from
crime prevention within the peripheral motif toward a more central spotlight of crime
control with the rise of the ‘preventive state’. As a term coined by Carole Steiker (1998),
the ‘preventive state’ describes the proliferation of preventive laws and practices in
North America. Steiker’s observation derives from a spate of ex ante measures in poli-
cing, prosecution and sentencing whic h coincides with the criminological an d legal
thesis of ‘new penology’ (Feeley and Simon, 1992), ‘culture of control’ (Garland,
2001), ‘precautionary principle’ (Sunstein, 2005) and ‘neoliberal penality’ (Lacey,
2013). As indicated in Andrew Ashworth’s and Lucia Zedner’s (2014) recent findings
of the prophylactic policy and praxis in England and Wales, preventive justice has
‘motivated the very founding of the modern criminal justice system’ (Ashworth and
Zedner, 2014: 11). According to the British criminal lawyers, the spirit of preventive
justice emanated from a historic quid pro quo relationship between state and citizen in
the Early Modern period of Europe, where residents obeyed laws and regulations in
return for the state to provide security against all kinds of risk (Ashworth and Zedner,
2014).
582 Social & Legal Studies 30(4)
To continue reading
Request your trial