[author]CISLS

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Note: The journal has been adjusted to a quarterly publication, from 3 issues per year to 4 issues per year！

1. How Casinoization Affects the Police in Macao

Tang In Lao，Department of Sociology, University of Macau

Xu Jianhua，Department of Sociology, University of Macau

Abstract

The past two decades have witnessed Macao’s development into the casino capital of the world. Casinos have significantly transformed all respects of Macao society—a phenomenon termed as the casinoization of Macao. While much research has explored how casinoization has affected Macao’s socioeconomic developments, empirical research on the relationship between casinoization and law enforcement agencies is extremely limited. Using official statistics and interviews with serving and retired police officers as well as police applicants in Macao, this article examines the quick-money mentality, laissez-faire regulation, and the paradox of plenty, three features of casinoization, and their profound impact on the Macao police. First, the early phase of casino liberalization created a draining effect on human capital from the police force. Second, the lucrative casino tax revenues empowered the government to resolve the labour shortage issue and significantly improve the police image. Third, casinoization inadvertently reinforced the colonial legacy of laissez-faire regulation, hampering the progress of institutional reforms. Fourth, the decline of casino has contributed to the unprecedented “police fever” among the youth in Macao.

Keywords

Casinos, police, Macao, post-colonialism, liberalization

2. Coexisting with Drug Addiction: Strategies Used by Hong Kong’s Older Mixed Users to Improve Their Perceived Quality of Life

Vincent S. Cheng，Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Abstract

In Hong Kong, the percentage of older drug users has increased over the last two decades. However, the motivations behind their drug-use behaviours have received little research attention. This study focuses on older drug users who are enrolled in methadone treatment programmes but still use illicit drugs (mixed use). Some studies in the criminological literature and government discourse consider drug users to be passive and lacking self-control. However, in-depth interviews in with 25 older mixed users (aged over 50 years) in Hong Kong revealed that mixed use is one of the various strategies they actively employ to improve their self-perceived quality of life. Using the framework of the selective optimization with compensation model, this study (1) describes the strategies older mixed users adopt as active agents to improve their self-perceived quality of life while coexisting with their addiction; and (2) explains how these strategies were affected and constrained by Hong Kong’s prohibitionist drug policy. I infer that prohibitionist drug policies that emphasize on total drug abstinence may fail to cater to the needs of older drug users who have undergone several relapses and treatments in their lifetimes and do not think they can give up using drugs. This study also provides evidence to show how some drug users may act as active agents to manage and coexist with their addiction, and their agency seems to be constrained by the wider drug policy implemented in Hong Kong.

Keywords

substance abuse, older people, quality of life, drug rehabilitation, drug relapse

3. Innovation through Litigation: Prison Reform and the Legal Opportunity Structure in Taiwan

Mao-hong Lin，Taipei University Institute of Criminology

Abstract

Drawing on the theory of the legal opportunity structure, this article traces the progress of prison reform in Taiwan by highlighting how a case of parole revocation in the beginning led to an overhaul of the prison system in the end. This article argues that, through four interpretations of the Constitutional Court and the legal opportunity structure shaped thereby, including the split between courts, creation and expansion of inmates’ access to court, and the support from allies, the prison reform was eventually achieved. Theoretically, this article makes two contributions to the literature: (1) the combination of inactive legislature and reactive executive branch as the political context is decisive to the openness of the legal opportunity structure for it increases the receptivity of a proactive judiciary; (2) the international human rights frame incorporated into the legal stock by the Constitutional Court made the prison reform an ongoing process rather than a done work.

Keywords

legal opportunity structure; access to court; legal framing; parole; prison litigation; human rights

4. Understanding Health Fraud Offenders in China: An Emotional Labour Perspective

Jianhua Xu, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau

Guyu Sun, University of Maryland, Park College, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Sinan Wu, Nanjing University School of Law

Shangyi Zhu, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau

You Zhou, Monash University School of Social Sciences

Abstract

Existing literature has highlighted the importance of recognizing health fraud offenders’ intentional manipulations of victims’ vulnerabilities. However, the manipulation tactics of health fraud have received little attention. This study aims to extend the current understanding of health fraud by incorporating the concept of emotional labour. Nested in the Chinese context, which owns the most populous ageing population, three sets of qualitative data were collected, including 13 semi-structured interviews, 233 judicial documents, and 197 media reports. The findings suggest that health fraud offenders utilized three types of emotional labour as means of committing crime: including the labour of anxiety relief, the labour of filial piety, and the labour of social networking. This article not only provides novel insights into understanding health fraud, but also contributes to introducing the concept of emotional labour in criminological and socio-legal studies.

Keywords

health fraud; emotional labour; vulnerability manipulation; older adults; China

5. Liability Beyond Law: Conceptions of Fairness in Chinese Tort Cases

Rachel E. Stern， Berkeley Law

Benjamin L. Liebman, Columbia Law

Wenwa Gao, Columbia Law

Xiahan Wu, UCSD Political Science Department

Abstract

Empirical work consistently finds that Chinese courts resolve civil cases by finding a compromise solution. But beyond this split-it-down-the-middle tendency, when and how do Chinese courts arrive at decisions that feel “fair and just” in cases in which they invoke those ideas? Drawing on a data set of 9,485 tort cases, we find that Chinese courts impose liability on two types of parties with ethical, but not legal, obligation to victims: (1) participants in a shared activity and (2) those who control a physical space. In these cases, Chinese courts stretch the law to spread losses through communities and to acknowledge traumatic harm. Considering fairness, then, returns Chinese courts to their longstanding role as managers of communities who respond to misfortune by assigning legal responsibility to relationships that range from intimate to surprisingly tenuous.

Keywords

China; Courts; Authoritarian legality; Socialist rule of law; Interpretive approaches

Book review

1. Asia’s Emerging Scholarship in Law and Society - The Asian Law & Society Reader. By Lynette J. Chua, David M. Engle & Sida Liu. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2023. 430 pp. Paperback $35.50

2. Socio-Legal Analyses of the Politics of Rights Mobilization in Asia - The Politics of Rights and Southeast Asia. By Lynette J. Chua. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 68 pp. Paperback $20.00

3. The Problematic Situation of Freedom of Expression in Japan - Japan’s Prisoners of Conscience: Protest and Law during the Iraq War. By Lawrence Repeta, Oxford & New York: Routledge, 2023. 238 pp. Hardcover: £120.00