RT Article
T1 Strong Control and Weak Service: Enforcing Drug Treatment in China
JF Journal of drug issues
VO 55
IS 3
SP 379
OP 400
A1 Jiang, Jize
A1 Song, Apei
A2 Song, Apei
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1929300689
AB The proliferation of drug treatment services, crafted under harm reduction and evidence-based principles, is touted as a benevolent approach for drug offenders, foregrounding their rehabilitation and reintegration into the community, and embodying the ideal of penal welfare. Despite extant studies on the functional effectiveness on recidivism among drug offenders, little research has situated the operational significance of drug treatment programs within a broader project of the Chinese state’s efforts to govern a rapidly modernizing society. To bridge this gap, this study examines the implementation of drug treatment in the Chinese justice system by unravelling the processes and logics that assemble strong control and weak service in practice. The analysis suggests that Chinese drug treatment programs both reflect and reinforce the state-centric logic of the Chinese approach to social governance, functioning to enhance the state’s legitimacy and strengthen its capacity for social control. We contend that when state interests and political ideologies are prioritized over drug offenders’ recovery, concerns and needs of drug offenders are downplayed and the rehabilitative effectiveness of those programs is diminished. Future research and policy implications for ameliorating drug treatment programs are also addressed.
K1 community-based drug services
K1 Social Control
K1 rehabilitative work
K1 Chinese drug treatment
DO 10.1177/00220426241231710