A Study of Gender Differences on Chinese Criminal Justice Practitioners’ Death Penalty Opinions

Abstract

Among Western studies of death penalty public opinion, one specific inquiry is on potential gender differences between men and women. While many studies conducted in the United States found a gender gap in which men exhibited significantly higher levels of support for capital punishment, studies of this gender gap in other nations are rare and the results are mixed and inconsistent. Based on a sample of 516 criminal justice professionals (CJPs) from one southern Chinese city, this study examines their death penalty opinions and explores if potential gender differences exist. Bivariate and multivariate analyses showed little significant differences between male and female Chinese CJPs, albeit women displayed lower levels of support in general. In rape crimes, however, female Chinese CJPs were more likely to favor capital punishment than males, after controlling for other variables. This study provides the first in-depth examination of gender differences of death penalty opinions among CJPs.

Keywords:

• Chinese criminal justice professionals
• death penalty justifications
• death penalty opinion
• gender differences

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 It should be noted that some of the publications (Jiang et al., 2010; Jiang etal., 2007; Jiang & Wang, 2008; Lambert et al., 2014; Lambert et al., 2007) relied on the same sample and data.

2 Regarding the gender composition of each CJP group, prosecutors (64.7%), lawyers (49.1%), and the ‘others’ (47.7%) have higher female representations, compared to the police (26.6%), judges (33.3%) and correctional officers (35.5%) in our sample, likely reflecting the gendered nature of different CJPs. While treating the CJPs as a collective group in this study, the reader should be cautioned that there are potential opinion variations across CJP groups (which we address in another study).

3 Besides the problem of reliance on the oversimplified general question in polls to measure people’s support for the death penalty, a related question is how to categorize people’s opinions based on the survey questions. A common practice is to dichotomize people’s opinions (e.g., ‘favor’ vs. ‘oppose’) and leave out equivocal answers (e.g., ‘not sure’, ‘don’t know’). Even among studies that utilized scales (e.g., Likert scales) in their measurement, scholars often collapse the scale into a binary outcome, and this trend seemingly continues among recent publications in this field (Anderson et al., 2017; Porter et al., 2018; Trahan et al., 2019). Nevertheless, this could lead to serious misinterpretation of the results, especially when there is a significant portion of respondents who hold ‘not sure/neutral’ positions. Instead of reporting the binary results (and leaving out the ‘neutral’ group), we keep the ‘neutral’ group and utilize trichotomized measures in this study. Some scholars (e.g., Bakken, 2023) suggested that these ‘undecided’ folks may have an important role to play in shaping the future of China’s death penalty reforms.

4 The Chinese Criminal Law stipulates that rape only applies to female victims (Article 236).

5 As pointed out by one anonymous reviewer, research (particularly in social and political psychology) has found empirical support to the concept of (value) ambivalence, which refers to the presence of conflicting evaluations or beliefs held by people about an attitude object. For instance, research by Craig and his colleagues (Craig et al., 2002; Craig et al., 2005) found that many respondents in their survey simultaneously held both positive and negative attitudes toward issues related to abortion and gay rights. Such ambivalence, whose degree varies depending upon the specific circumstances, potentially reflects conflicts among people’s underlying core values, and may help explain the instability of mass attitudes and their opinion changes over time. Our current study, though not directly testing the potential ambivalence of CJPs’ death penalty opinion, does reveal that a significant portion of CJPs do not hold firm answers one way or the other, and their opinions are subject to change given specific circumstances. The concept of ambivalence thus could be one theoretical foundation for interpreting these results and future studies should be devoted to this approach. We’d like to thank the anonymous reviewer for this important insight.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bin Liang

Bin Liang is a Professor of Sociology at Oklahoma State University. His current research interests include globalization and its impact on the Chinese legal system, crime and deviance in China, and comparative studies in criminology and criminal justice. His academic publications in recent years have focused on China’s death penalty, sexual offenses against minors, wrongful convictions, and judicial sentencing on corruption cases. His latest book (coauthored), titled Chinese Netizens’ Opinions on Death Sentences: An Empirical Examination is published in 2021 with University of Michigan Press.

Jianhong Liu

Jianhong Liu earned his PhD from SUNY-Albany. He is a Distinguished Professor of Faculty of Law at University of Macau. He was the Founding President of Asian Criminological Society and is the Editor in Chief of Asian Journal of Criminology. He is the winner of 2016 Freda Adler Award from ASC International Division and 2018 G.O.W. Mueller Award from ACJS International Sections. His research mainly centers around Chinese and Asian criminology and criminal justice policy. He is an author, coauthor, editor, or coeditor of more than 190 publications.

Hong Lu

Hong Lu is Professor of the Criminal Justice Department at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her areas of interest include comparative criminology, court and sentencing, the death penalty and sociology of law. She coauthored/edited several academic books (with Cambridge University Press, Columbia University Press, and Routledge), edited special issues for Journals, and published dozens of journal articles in some of the top-tiered journals (Law & Society Review, British Journal of Criminology, China Quarterly). Professor Lu was a Senior Research Fellow at the East Asia Institute of the National University of Singapore, and a recipient of the Barrick Scholar Award for the Outstanding Faculty Researcher at UNLV.

Zhan Tuo

Zhan Tuo is a PhD student in criminal and procedure law at the Faculty of Law, University of Macau. His research interests include empirical study of criminal law, comparative study of crime and criminal justice, community and crime, crime and social control, policing, victimization, and research methodology and social statistics.