Coercive rehabilitation and therapeutic control: how the police navigate the penal-welfare nexus in Chinese drug governance
The recent ‘lenient turn’ in Chinese crime policy has prompted the rise of humanitarianism and the establishment of the rehabilitation ideal in drug governance. Despite rich insights into the workings of drug rehabilitation and its effects on offenders, scarce research has been conducted to address...
| Authors: | ; |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2025
|
| In: |
Policing and society
Year: 2025, Volume: 35, Issue: 9, Pages: 1203-1218 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Keywords: |
| Summary: | The recent ‘lenient turn’ in Chinese crime policy has prompted the rise of humanitarianism and the establishment of the rehabilitation ideal in drug governance. Despite rich insights into the workings of drug rehabilitation and its effects on offenders, scarce research has been conducted to address how this broad policy shift affects the exercise of discretion by the police, who are primarily tasked with drug enforcement in China. Using data from an ethnographic project on drug policing in one Chinese city, the present study examines how police make sense of and adapt to the increased policy demand for the rehabilitation of people who use drugs. The analysis reveals that police officers have vigorously interwoven control and care logics into their routine activities surrounding drug control, devising and deploying tactics within the penal-welfare continuum for situational accomplishments of drug rehabilitation. Consequently, their modes of implementation crystallize into forms of coercive rehabilitation and therapeutic control. Research and practice implications for the increased use of police in drug rehabilitation in particular and social problems in general are also discussed. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1477-2728 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/10439463.2025.2472642 |
