Predictors of Death Penalty Views in China: An Empirical Comparison Between College Students and Citizens

• Published date: 01 October 2018
• Author: Shanhe Jiang,Ming Hu,Eric G. Lambert
• Date: 01 October 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X18767573
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X18767573

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2018, Vol. 62(14) 4714 –4735

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X18767573

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Article

Predictors of Death Penalty

Views in China: An Empirical

Comparison Between College

Students and Citizens

Shanhe Jiang1, Ming Hu2, and Eric G. Lambert3

Abstract

China’s current Criminal Law has 46 death-eligible offenses, and China executes more

people than any other country in the world. However, there is a lack of study of

attitudes toward capital punishment for specific offenses, and no death penalty view

comparison between college students and regular citizens in China was found. This

study was taken to address these limitations. Using a sample of 401 respondents from

Zhejiang, China, in 2016, the present study found that more than 72% of respondents

favored the death penalty without any specification of crime types. Level of death

penalty support differed by various specific crimes. As expected, relative to college

students, general population citizens were more likely to support capital punishment.

Both groups had the highest death penalty support for murder. The study also

revealed similar and different reasons behind death penalty attitudes between college

students and regular citizens.

Keywords

death penalty views, college students, citizens, China, capital punishment

Not only is the People’s Republic of China (henceforth, China) a capital punishment–

retentionist nation, but it is also believed to execute more people than all other nations

combined (Griffiths, 2016). Nonetheless, survey data on the death penalty are

1Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

2Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

3The University of Nevada, Reno, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ming Hu, Guanghua Law School, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310058, China.

Email: hm606@163.com

767573IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X18767573International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyJiang et al.

research-article2018

Jiang et al. 4715

generally not available to the public in China, and no empirical research of death

penalty views appeared in English language journals prior to 2004 (Jiang, Lambert,

Wang, Saito, & Pilot, 2010). Starting in 2004, several high profile wrongful convic-

tion cases such as Sun Wangang, She Xianglin, and Zhao Zuohai were reported in the

Chinese media (Liang, 2015). These wrongful conviction capital punishment cases

generated heated debates among Chinese criminal justice professionals, the general

public, and scholars. Within China, legal and philosophical arguments about the

death penalty have increased (see Yu, 2015 for a review), but there is still little empir-

ical research on major reasons to support or oppose it. Meanwhile, outside China,

scholars have a growing interest in studying Chinese capital punishment. Besides

historical and legal investigations of the death penalty in China (see Liang, 2015, and

Lu & Miethe, 2007 for reviews), scholars have also conducted empirical studies on

death penalty views (see Jiang, 2015 for a review). These studies have examined a

number of reasons to support or oppose capital punishment, such as deterrence, retri-

bution, incapacitation, rehabilitation (Jiang, Lambert, & Nathan, 2009; Jiang et al.,

2010; Jiang & Wang, 2008), wrongful conviction/execution (Jiang et al., 2009; Jiang

et al., 2010; Jiang & Wang, 2008), crime severity, crime prevalence, fear of crime

(Jiang et al., 2009; Jiang et al., 2010; Jiang & Wang, 2008; Liang, Lu, Miethe, &

Zhang, 2006; Qi & Oberwittler, 2009; Wu, Sun, & Wu, 2011), barbarity (Jiang et al.,

2010), confidence in government (Jiang & Wang, 2008), and victimization (Liang

et al., 2006; Wu et al., 2011).

Although the above studies provide insights about death penalty views in China,

they have several limitations. First, the 1997 Criminal Law in China had 68 capital

offenses, and the latest (2015) version of Criminal Law has 46 death-eligible offenses.

As such, there was a reduction in the number of death-eligible sentences. There have

been only four surveys of the attitudes toward capital punishment for specific offenses,

and most of these studies were before the change in the number of death-eligible

crimes. Three of the studies (Jia, 2005; Kuang et al., 2010; Oberwittler & Qi, 2009) are

descriptive, while the fourth used regression analysis (Qi & Oberwittler, 2009).

Second, there are six studies that used multivariate analyses of predictors of death

penalty views in China, and only three studies (Jiang et al., 2009; Jiang, Lambert, &

Wang, 2007; Jiang & Wang, 2008) included three or four of these variables: deter-

rence, retribution, incapacitation, rehabilitation. Three studies (Jiang et al., 2009; Jiang

et al., 2007; Jiang & Wang, 2008) included wrongful conviction/execution, one study

(Jiang & Wang, 2008) included confidence in government, one study (Jiang et al.,

2010) included barbarity, and two studies (Liang et al., 2006; Wu et al., 2011) included

victimization. This indicates past studies have considered a limited few factors when

exploring the reasons for level of death penalty support. Third, among the 13 empirical

investigations of China’s death penalty views reviewed by Jiang (2015), four included

noncollege student samples. Fourth, there is no comparison between college students

and regular citizens on their level of death penalty support and reasons for supporting

or opposing capital punishment. This study was, therefore, undertaken to address these

limitations. The focus of the present study was to explore (a) the support levels of the

death penalty for different types of offenses including murder, other violent crimes,