Criminal Case Dispositions through Pleas in Greater China

Enshen Li is an associate professor at the School of Law, City University of Hong Kong. His research lies at the intersection of several research fields: terrorism, criminal justice, theoretical criminology and socio-legal studies of punishment. He is the author of Punishment in Contemporary China: Its Evolution, Development and Change. Xiaoyu Yuan is an associate professor at the School of Criminal Justice, Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. She is the author of the book Restorative Justice in China: Comparing Theory and Practice. She has focused on issues in criminal justice and comparative criminology. Yan Zhang is a research assistant professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Macau. He obtained his PhD at the Australian National University. His research focus is restorative justice, qualitative research, and regulation and governance. Yan currently serves as the managing editorof the Asian Journal of Criminology.

1. Introduction.- 2. Plea Leniency in Mainland China: Legislation, Characteristics and Effects.- 3. Plea Leniency and Prosecution Centeredness in China’s Criminal Process.- 4. Guilty Pleas and New Challenges to Criminal Defence in China.- 5. Is Plea Leniency Really a Bargain: An Empirical Study of Six Cities in China.- 6. Behind the Scenes: Exploring the Legal and Cultural Factors of Taiwan’s Plea Bargain System.- 7. Judicial Paternalism and the Stagnant Bargaining Process in Taiwan.- 8. The Courts, the Prosecution, and the Defence in Plea-Based Case Dispositions in Hong Kong.- 9. Pressuring Defendants to Plead Guilty? A Comparative Analysis of Plea-based Justice in Mainland China and Hong Kong.- 10. Prosecution or Mediation: Perpetrator-Victim Negotiation in Macau and the Way Forward.- 11. The Many Cultural Manifestations of Convictions through Pleas in Greater China: An International Perspective.