The primary focus of this article is a critical examination of Chinese crime statistics. The problems related to the production as well as the comparative use of Chinese national crime statistics are tackled by means of an organizing framework that includes macro-level characteristics of Chinese society, factors that affect the quality and quantity of Chinese crime statistics, and specific problems related to the comparative use of Chinese crime statistics. It is argued that Chinese crime statistics are suspect as a measure of criminal misconduct, more so than in Western countries, but that they nevertheless can be quite useful when applied as a measure of organizational processes reflecting social control.
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