Predicting Re-Incarceration Status of Prisoners in Contemporary China: Applying Western Criminological Theories

• Published date: 01 March 2018
• Author: Yunhan Zhao,Jianhong Liu,Steven F. Messner
• Date: 01 March 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X16669142
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X16669142

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2018, Vol. 62(4) 1018 –1042

© The Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X16669142

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Article

Predicting Re-Incarceration

Status of Prisoners in

Contemporary China:

Applying Western

Criminological Theories

Steven F. Messner1, Jianhong Liu2, and Yunhan Zhao1

Abstract

Studies have revealed that self-control theory, social learning theory, and strain theory

are useful in explaining criminal activity in China. Previous research with Chinese data,

however, has focused almost exclusively on samples of adolescents and the minor types

of offending that are typically captured in such samples. The present study builds upon

prior work by considering the extent to which these three major etiological theories

of crime can help differentiate between profiles of Chinese prisoners categorized

with respect to re-incarceration status. Specifically, we derive hypotheses that predict

prisoners’ status as first-time inmates or inmates with multiple incarcerations. These

hypotheses are assessed with recently collected data for a sample of approximately

1,800 prisoners in Southern China. The results reveal that indicators of peer criminality,

low self-control, and negative emotions (a theorized outcome of experiences of strain)

are all positively associated with re-incarceration status.

Keywords

re-incarceration, China, self-control, strain, peer criminality

Introduction

Comparative criminology has followed a rather curious life-course over the years. As

Howard, Newman, and Pridemore (2000, p. 141) observed in their essay prepared for the

National Institute of Justice’s four-volume report Criminal Justice 2000, “comparative

1University at Albany, State University of New York, USA

2University of Macau, Taipa, China

Corresponding Author:

Steven F. Messner, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Sociology, University at Albany, State University

of New York, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222, USA.

Email: smessner@albany.edu

669142IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X16669142International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyMessner et al.

research-article2016

Messner et al. 1019

criminology is as old as criminology itself.” Prominent Enlightenment scholars such as

Bentham, Voltaire, Helvetius, and Quetelet recognized the value of comparative inquiry,

systematically contrasting features of crime and justice in their own nations with those

of others. Interest in such comparisons waned throughout much of the 19th and early

20th century, “as nations looked inward” (Howard et al., 2000, p. 141). Comparative

inquiry once again began to capture the interest of criminologists in the middle years of

the 20th century—a development that Bennett (1980) characterized as an especially ben-

eficial “revival.” Yet 20 years after Bennett’s pronouncement of this welcome develop-

ment, Farrington (2000, p. 5) offered a less optimistic appraisal of the vitality of

comparative criminology in his 2000 Presidential Address to the American Society of

Criminology. He lamented that “cross-national comparative studies in criminology are

important but relatively infrequent.”

The situation has changed dramatically during the past decade and a half following

Farrington’s address. A burgeoning literature in criminology has emerged that has

been “comparative,” although understood in different ways. As Bennett (2004)

explained in his Presidential Address to the American Academy of Criminal Justice

Sciences, two important dimensions that differentiate among comparative strategies

are their scope and their data.1 Some comparative studies entail comparisons for two

nations or for a small number of nations with data collected from each of those nations.

Another type of comparative research is multinational in the sense of being based on

multivariate statistical analyses of data recorded for large samples of nations. Yet other

studies are comparative in the sense of taking theories that were developed in a par-

ticular sociocultural context and assessing their applicability in a single nation that

provides a very different sociocultural context from that in which the theories were

originally formulated. Such studies are typically directed toward assessing the gener-

alizability of criminological theories (see also Bennett, 1980; Kohn, 1987).

Our analyses pursue this latter objective of comparative criminology. Specifically, we

build upon the fairly substantial and growing body of work that has examined the extent

to which prominent Western criminological theories can be generalized to contemporary

China. China constitutes a particularly strategic setting for assessing the generalizability

of Western theories because, as Chen emphasized in his comparative analyses of the role

of formal and informal controls, Chinese society exhibits “unique cultures and tradi-

tions.” As a result, Chinese and Western societies represent “two different extremes with

respect to the nature of social and legal control” (Chen, 2004, p. 523).

Despite these pronounced sociocultural differences, three prominent etiological

theories—social learning theory, strain theory, and self-control theory—have proven

to be useful in explaining delinquency in China, although the patterns occasionally

differ somewhat from those more commonly reported in the West. A limitation of pre-

vious research, however, is the almost exclusive focus on samples of adolescents and

on the minor types of offending that are typically captured in such samples.2 The pur-

pose of the present research is to build upon prior work by considering the extent to

which these three major etiological theories of crime—social learning theory, strain

theory, and self-control theory—can help differentiate between profiles of Chinese

prisoners categorized with respect to re-incarceration status. Specifically, we derive