Jianhong Liu

University of Macau, Department of Sociology, Faculty Member

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Prof Liu is the winner of 2016 American Society of Criminology’s “Freda Adler Distinguished Scholar Award”. He is also the winner of the “Gerhard O.W. Mueller Award for Distinguished Contributions to International Criminal Justice” from Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (USA). He is the elected President of the Scientific Commission of the International Society for Criminology, the chairman of the General Assembly of the Asian Criminological Society and the Founding President of Asian Criminological Society (2009-2015). He is the editor-in-chief of the Asian Journal of Criminology and the editor of book series "Springer Series on Asian Criminology and Criminal Justice (by Springer). He has published more than 100 research articles and book chapters, and authored and edited 29 books. He is the author of Asian Paradigm and Relationism Justice Theory (2016).

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Papers by Jianhong Liu

Police Procedural Justice Measure

PsycTESTS Dataset, 2019

Police supervisors' work-related attitudes in China

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 2016

While the past two decades have witnessed a fast growing of policing literature in China, officer... more While the past two decades have witnessed a fast growing of policing literature in China, officers' job-related attitudes remain severely under-researched. Using survey data collected from 212 police supervisors in a major Chinese city, this study examined the patterns of Chinese police officers' occupational attitudes toward selective enforcement, legal restrictions, community policing, and use of force, and factors that influence such attitudes. About half the respondents were in favor of legal restrictions, and the majority of officers supported the notions of selective enforcement, community policing, and use of force. Male, older officers, those who had no military experience, and officers who worked at field stations favored selective enforcement than their counterparts, whereas supervisor who were younger and worked at nonfield stations were more supportive for legal restrictions. Supervisors' role orientations toward law enforcement and order maintenance influenc...

Linking supervisory procedural accountability to officer procedural accountability in Chinese policing

Policing and Society, 2017

ABSTRACT An important yet severely understudied issue in the procedural justice literature involv... more ABSTRACT An important yet severely understudied issue in the procedural justice literature involves the linkage between supervisory procedural accountability within a police agency and officer procedural accountability on the street. Relying on the survey data collected from more than 700 police officers in a large Chinese city, this study finds that the effect of supervisory procedural accountability on officer procedural accountability is principally indirect through the mediating factors of officer satisfaction with job and morale, net of several control variables. Noticeably, surveyed officers report only moderate levels of procedural accountability delivered by their supervisors, and even lower levels of accountability that they themselves are willing to render to the public. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.

Attitudes toward peers, supervisors, and citizens: a comparison of Chinese and Taiwanese police officers

Policing: An International Journal

PurposeThis paper comparatively assesses the connections between individual demographic traits, o... more PurposeThis paper comparatively assesses the connections between individual demographic traits, occupational characteristics, and organizational factors and officers' attitudes toward important groups in China and Taiwan.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data used in this study were collected from 722 police officers from mainland China and 531 officers from Taiwan. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted to assess the correlates of police attitudes toward peers, supervisors, and citizens.FindingsThe Chinese and Taiwanese officers do not differ in their trust in peers, but the Chinese officers hold significantly more positive views on the trustworthiness of supervisors and citizens compared to the Taiwanese officers. Supervisor justice and organizational identification are significant predictors of officers' attitudes toward all three groups in both countries.Research limitations/implicationsA major limitation revolves around the inability to test and explain exactly...

Occupational crimes in casinos: employee theft in Macau, China

Crime, Law and Social Change

It is virtually impossible to accurately measure employee theft across the casino industry using ... more It is virtually impossible to accurately measure employee theft across the casino industry using official statistics. In this paper, we use the self-report method for measuring crime to (a) estimate the prevalence, incidence, seriousness, and versatility of occupational offending in casinos in Macau, China-the largest casino gambling location in the world; and (b) identify characteristics which correlate with that offending. One in seven employees in our sample (14%; 38 out of 281) reported engaging in at least one of six offenses (theft in the workplace, falsification of documents, computer fraud, bribe offering, bribe accepting, and white-collar exploitation) in the 12 months prior to their survey response. The great majority of active offenders specialized in crime type: 61% of the active offenders in our sample (23 out of 38) committed just one of the six occupational crimes. Criminal "specialization" notwithstanding, offenders committed their crimes relatively frequently; occupational crimes were particularly costly to casinos in the long run; and these offenses varied in their severity and extent depending on crime type. Demographic characteristics of casino employees-in particular, male gender, occupational position, work schedule, and work-related experience-were associated with whether an employee engaged in workplace crime. Regarding psychological and lifestyle characteristics of employees, only financial pressure and gambling behavior were significantly related to occupational offending. Given that casinos are subject to high levels of surveillance relative to other places of employment, criminal motivation, and not just opportunity, could matter in terms of crimes committed by workers in the gaming industry.

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Attitudes toward peers, supervisors, and citizens: a comparison of Chinese and Taiwanese police officers

by Ivan Y Sun and Jianhong Liu

Purpose-This paper comparatively assesses the connections between individual demographic traits, ... more Purpose-This paper comparatively assesses the connections between individual demographic traits, occupational characteristics, and organizational factors and officers' attitudes toward important groups in China and Taiwan. Design/methodology/approach-Survey data used in this study were collected from 722 police officers from mainland China and 531 officers from Taiwan. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted to assess the correlates of police attitudes toward peers, supervisors, and citizens. Findings-The Chinese and Taiwanese officers do not differ in their trust in peers, but the Chinese officers hold significantly more positive views on the trustworthiness of supervisors and citizens compared to the Taiwanese officers. Supervisor justice and organizational identification are significant predictors of officers' attitudes toward all three groups in both countries. Research limitations/implications-A major limitation revolves around the inability to test and explain exactly why findings from the two groups vary in their ways. Future research should include specific social, political, and cultural predictors. Originality/value-This study represents one of the few studies that compare police attitudes toward important groups of peers, supervisors, and citizens across nations/cultures.

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Covid-19 and Asian Criminology: Uncertainty, Complexity, and the Responsibility of AJOC Amidst Eventful Times

Asian Journal of Criminology, 2021

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Asian Criminology and Non-Western Criminology: Challenges, Strategies, and Directions

International Annals of Criminology, 2021

Academic criminology originated in Western countries, primarily in Europe and in the USA. It has ... more Academic criminology originated in Western countries, primarily in Europe and in the USA. It has achieved great success, produced many influential theories, sophisticated methodology, academic institutions, and effective policy products, and has formed a productive paradigm, which has led to a flourishing discipline. However, as there have been growing critiques against “Western-centric” criminology, growing attention has turned to non-Western criminology. As Belknap has said, “We are in an exciting time in criminology, as the scholarship is becoming more global, collaborative, and interdisciplinary.” This paper addresses several important disciplinary questions: the relationship between Western and non-Western criminology, the strategies of developing criminology under non-Western contexts, the relationship between context-dependent findings from the non-West and the scientific traditions that seek unified human knowledge of criminology. The article suggests a strategy for developi...

The New Asian Paradigm: A Relational Approach

Comparative Criminology in Asia, 2017

This chapter summarizes and reviews ideas developed by Jianhong Liu over a number of years. It dr... more This chapter summarizes and reviews ideas developed by Jianhong Liu over a number of years. It draws on the 2009 paper in which he set out an agenda for Asian criminologists after becoming editor-in-chief of the Asian Journal of Criminology. It also draws on two recent papers, one to be published in a collection on Southern criminology and another on access to justice published in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice. Liu’s work has been concerned with identifying distinctive features of crime and criminal justice in Asian countries. He has variously termed this approach the ‘Asian paradigm’ and the ‘relational approach’ which is contrasted with Western individualism.

Does Trust in Citizens Mediate the Relationship Between Internal and External Procedural Justice: A Comparison Between China and Taiwan Police

This study investigates the roles of trust in citizens and compliance with agency policies in med... more This study investigates the roles of trust in citizens and compliance with agency policies in mediating the direct and indirect relationships between internal procedural justice and external procedural justice among Chinese and Taiwanese police officers. Based on survey data collected from 1,253 police officers, this study comparatively analyzes whether supervisory treatment of officers is predictive of trust in citizens and willingness to follow agency policies, which in turn is linked to their willingness to act fairly and justly toward citizens on the street. The results indicate that officer trust in citizens mediates the relationship between internal and external procedural justice in both China and Taiwan, but compliance with agency policies does not. Internal procedural justice directly predicts external procedural justice among Taiwanese officers, but such a connection is not found among Chinese officers. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.

Asian Criminology and Crime and Justice in Japan: An Introduction

Crime and Justice in Contemporary Japan, 2017

Japan is well known for an outstanding fact that its crime rates, particularly the violent crime ... more Japan is well known for an outstanding fact that its crime rates, particularly the violent crime rates, are the lowest among all industrialized countries. Theories of modernization and social change from Durkheim’s time have been repeatedly supported by the facts that almost all the countries experience a rapid rise in crimes along with the process of modernization, industrialization, and large-scaled population migration (e.g., Liu, Zhang, & Messner, 2001a, 2001b; Liu & Messner, 2001). Japan is an outstanding exception (see Tables 1.1 and 1.2). Criminologists naturally ask why, How do we explain this criminological mystery? Prominent Western scholars of comparative criminology explain the importance of understanding crime and justice in Asia. Karstedt (2001) has pointed out that the low crime rates in Asia are a major puzzle. She stated that scholars “look in awe to Asia, and try to solve the enigma of modern, affluent societies with low rates especially of violent crimes” (Karstedt, 2001, p. 285). These observations demonstrate the critical importance of developing criminology in Asia. In recent years, an increasing number of prominent scholars have recognized the importance and contributions of Asian criminology (Agnew, 2015; Belknap, 2015; Braithwaite, 2014, 2015; Carrington, Hogg, & Sozzo, 2015; Messner, 2014, 2015; Sampson, 2015; Thilagaraj & Liu, 2017; Walklate, 2015).

The Effects of Classroom Anger, Strain, and Negative Emotions on Delinquency among Vocational School Students in China

Deviant Behavior, 2020

General Strain Theory delineates the intervening paths from strain to deviance and crime, mediate... more

Exploring the Association Between Work–Family Conflict and Job Involvement

International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 2019

Past research among U.S. correctional staff has found that work–family conflict has negative outc... more Past research among U.S. correctional staff has found that work–family conflict has negative outcomes such as decreasing job satisfaction, decreasing organizational commitment, and increasing job stress. Little empirical research has addressed the association of the specific types of work–family conflict with job involvement. The present study contributes to the literature by separately analyzing the relationship of the four specific major types of work–family conflict (time-based conflict, strain-based conflict, behavior-based conflict, and family-on-work conflict) with job involvement among surveyed staff at two Chinese prisons. Job involvement varied by the type of work–family conflict. Specifically, time-based conflict and strain-based conflict had nonsignificant association with job involvement, but behavior-based and family-based conflicts had significant negative associations.

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Debating Core Conceptual and Measurement Issues About Police Legitimacy—Editor’s Introduction

Asian Journal of Criminology, 2019

This special issue on police legitimacy assembles a group of articles that debate the core concep... more This special issue on police legitimacy assembles a group of articles that debate the core conceptual and measurement issues about police legitimacy by authors from different backgrounds. These issues are very important given the growing expansion of the literature around the concept of police legitimacy. We organize this issue to provide the platform for authors to express views and critiques around both conceptual and methodological issues of police legitimacy. Legitimacy is quite important for legal authorities, as people obey the law and cooperate only when they consider the legal authorities to be legitimate. The study of police legitimacy is largely directed by Tylor's work. Legitimacy is defined as "a psychological property of an authority, institution, or social arrangement that leads those connected to it to believe that it is appropriate, proper, and just" (Tyler 2006, p. 375). Following Tyler's approach, large number of previous studies regarded the obligation to obey the police as the measurement of police legitimacy, and they identified procedural justice, distributive justice, effectiveness, and lawfulness as the four major possible sources of police legitimacy. However, Tankebe (2013) initiated a new approach by arguing that procedural justice, distributive justice, effectiveness, and lawfulness were constituent components of police legitimacy but not potential sources. This round of debate was stimulated by a paper published in Issue 13 of the Asian Journal of Criminology titled "Police Legitimacy and Citizen Cooperation in China: Testing an Alternative Model" by , in which the authors tested the new model for police legitimacy proposed by Tankebe (2013) instead of the most frequently tested framework-Tylor's process-based policing model. In that paper, by second-order confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling analysis of a sample from a city in Southern China, Sun et al. supported Tankebe's work that police legitimacy actually comprised the four aspects: procedural justice, distributive justice, effectiveness, and lawfulness, which influenced people's obligation to obey the police and cooperate with the police. This result stimulated a wave of debate around the conceptual and measurement issues of police legitimacy. As the research of Sun et al. was conducted in China, a society with a totally different

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Institutional procedural justice and street procedural justice in Chinese policing: The mediating role of moral alignment

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 2018

Although the process-based model of policing has been widely tested, research on how procedural j... more Although the process-based model of policing has been widely tested, research on how procedural justice works within police agencies, particularly its impact on officer willingness to engage in procedurally fair behavior on the street, is relatively scant. Based on survey data collected from Chinese police officers, this study assessed the linkages between internal procedural justice and external procedural justice through the mechanisms of moral alignment with both supervisors and citizens and perceived citizen trustworthiness. Greater internal procedural justice was directly related to higher external procedural justice. Fair supervision helped build up moral alignment between officers and supervisors and between officers and citizens, which in turn led to stronger commitment to fair treatment of the public. Internal procedural justice and moral alignment with citizens also cultivated officers’ perceptions of public trustworthiness, which further strengthened officers’ fair treatm...

Police Legitimacy and Compliance With the Law Among Chinese Youth

International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology, Aug 1, 2017

The process-based model of policing garnered considerable support in the discourse on police legi... more The process-based model of policing garnered considerable support in the discourse on police legitimacy. However, findings are largely based on Western contexts, and little attention has been paid to the model advanced by Tyler that police legitimacy helps promote compliance. Using a high school sample ( N = 711) from China, we follow Tankebe's operationalization and examine the role of legitimacy in youth support for the police and whether legitimacy helps predict compliance with the law. Findings indicate that procedural justice and shared values are strong predictors of youth support to the police, and this support positively predicts compliance with the law. Distributive fairness exerts an independent effect on compliance while having been questioned by the police is negatively related to compliance.

Social Transition and Crime in China: An Economic Motivation Thesis

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 2004

Perspectives on crime and social change are limited because few studies have examined the transit... more Perspectives on crime and social change are limited because few studies have examined the transition from state socialism to a market economy. This article proposes an economic motivation thesis, arguing that the introduction of market institutions in the transition from state socialism to a market economy generates vast economic motivation as well as fundamental institutional change. The massive expansion of economic motivation is a primary source of increased crime in China. The introduction of market institutions also creates conditions known as ‘institutional incompatibility’ and ‘institutional disorganisation’, which create unprecedented opportunities for economically motivated crimes. This article provides historical evidence from China to illustrate the processes and to substantiate the economic motivation thesis.

The Asian Criminological Paradigm and How It Links Global North and South: Combining an Extended Conceptual Toolbox from the North with Innovative Asian Contexts

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2017

In their recent seminal paper ‘Southern Criminology’, Carrington, Hogg and Sozzo (2016) address t... more In their recent seminal paper ‘Southern Criminology’, Carrington, Hogg and Sozzo (2016) address the issue of the global divide between South/North relations in the hierarchal production of criminological knowledge. They point out that the divide privileges theories, assumptions and methods that are largely based on the empirical specificities of the global North. Carrington et al. contend that the dominance of global North criminology has led to a severe underdevelopment of criminology in the global South, except ‘in Asia, with the establishment of the Asian Criminological Society and its journal’ (Liu 2009, in Carrington et al. 2016: 3). Carrington et al. propose an important task of bridging the global divide through further developing criminology in the global South. My present paper reviews the development of Asian criminology under the framework of the Asian Criminological Paradigm (Liu 2009). I primarily review the conceptual and theoretical developments, to suggest strategies...

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Predicting Re-Incarceration Status of Prisoners in Contemporary China: Applying Western Criminological Theories

International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology, Mar 30, 2016

Studies have revealed that self-control theory, social learning theory, and strain theory are use... more Studies have revealed that self-control theory, social learning theory, and strain theory are useful in explaining criminal activity in China. Previous research with Chinese data, however, has focused almost exclusively on samples of adolescents and the minor types of offending that are typically captured in such samples. The present study builds upon prior work by considering the extent to which these three major etiological theories of crime can help differentiate between profiles of Chinese prisoners categorized with respect to re-incarceration status. Specifically, we derive hypotheses that predict prisoners' status as first-time inmates or inmates with multiple incarcerations. These hypotheses are assessed with recently collected data for a sample of approximately 1,800 prisoners in Southern China. The results reveal that indicators of peer criminality, low self-control, and negative emotions (a theorized outcome of experiences of strain) are all positively associated with ...

Life Stress, Strain, and Deviance Across Schools: Testing the Contextual Version of General Strain Theory in China

International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology, Jun 1, 2017

General Strain Theory delineates different types of strain and intervening processes from strain ... more General Strain Theory delineates different types of strain and intervening processes from strain to deviance and crime. In addition to explaining individual strain-crime relationship, a contextualized version of general strain theory, which is called the Macro General Strain Theory, has been used to analyze how aggregate variables influence aggregate and individual deviance and crime. Using a sample of 1,852 students (Level 1) nested in 52 schools (Level 2), the current study tests the Macro General Strain Theory using Chinese data. The results revealed that aggregate life stress and strain have influences on aggregate and individual deviance, and reinforce the individual stress-deviance association. The current study contributes by providing the first Macro General Strain Theory test based on Chinese data and offering empirical evidence for the multilevel intervening processes from strain to deviance. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Police Procedural Justice Measure

PsycTESTS Dataset, 2019

Police supervisors' work-related attitudes in China

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 2016