Crime long has been a silent partner in China"s march to modernization, leading the regime to make law and order as central a priority as economic growth and the promise of prosperity. This groundbreaking study offers the first comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of Chinese crime, punishment, and policing. A multidisciplinary group of leading scholars draws on a rich body of empirical data and rare archival research to illuminate seldom-explored theoretical dimensions of legal ideology and reform, as well as the linkages between crime and control to broader themes of law, modernization, and development. The authors balance comparative perspectives with an understanding of China"s unique historical and cultural experience. This context is critical, the authors argue, as crime and control are at the root of modernity and how it is defined. In many ways the PRC is reliving the experiences of other industrializing countries, yet at the same time the practices of China"s police and...